


drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, romeo!

by unseeliekey



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: 'while her unhelpful sidekick tries to get questionable ass', (imagine that tag in quotation marks), ..........why is that a kink tag, Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Amputation, Blood and Gore, GOTH SAIHARA RIGHTS GOTH SAIHARA RIGHTS, Humor, ITS JUST THE HALLOWEEN VIBE BABEY WE'RE GOING ALL IN WITH THE HORROR TROPES, Implied Sexual Content, Innuendo, Meta, Multi, Ultimate Talent Development Plan (Dangan Ronpa), ahem on that note, also if you thought my previous slowdance scenes were bad i apologize for this one specifically., but! yeah this is "spooky" so keep that in mind!, does he succeed? no i'm homophobic, god this fucking got away from me im so sorry, horny saihara rights also apparently. i dont know what happened., i dont know what happened to this fic just take it., not that KAEDE has any fucking place to talk on that matter., op thinks he's funny (this is debatable.), the gore is kinda cheesy and over the top, this fic came from a very emo part of me and for that i apologize., this is really just 'horror protag kaede tries to save her friends'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unseeliekey/pseuds/unseeliekey
Summary: “Are those the monsters or is this the absinthe?” Chabashira asks.“Maybe both,” Kaede replies, rubbing her eyes. She sighs, then reaches down for the baseball bat, staring out the window at the oncoming horde- like locusts to crops, or foxes to prey, or maybe it isn't even worth looking for metaphors when you're watching demons stalk forward with their yellow eyes and teeth a-glinting. "Positions, everyone. Let's go down swinging."Shuichi pulls a kitchen knife from one of the buckled straps of his slutty goth boots and pulls up his fishnets, eyeliner and blood dripping down his face in equal parts. Kaede offers him a shaky grin he returns with just a small twitch. "The sharpest lives are the deadliest to live, I guess.""God, you're so attractive when you're depressed," Ouma sighs, tearing off another scrap of lace from his skirt to tuck it into the still-soaking bandage on his shoulder. "And when we go don't blame us, amiright, detective?""Oh my fucking god, just let the monsters in so I don't have to listen to them anymore," Maki snaps.(or: fighting monsters is fairly standard for hope's peak and sexy halloween costumes cause multiple problems.)
Relationships: (aka theyre still the only characters im good at writing), BUT ALSO deffo some kaemaki there, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, doing my part to push ousai supremacy, kaede/all the girls and amami, kaede/everyone
Comments: 40
Kudos: 175





	drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, romeo!

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! I DONT CARE ITS NOVEMBER ITS HALLOWEEN UNTIL I SAY IT ISNT.
> 
> yes this is a extremely late. no i havent updated kattar shuffle yet. in my defense im already wearing the clown makeup irl. 
> 
> thank you to everyone who voted on the poll i posted on my tumblr to help me decide a theme! "horror but in a comedy way and none of the cast dies" won (so you can relax) but TDP halloween party was a close second so i mashed that in there too! (i'll get to a monster au some day. don't worry.)
> 
> i wrote most of this nov 1st hungover in said clown makeup with one of my best friends sleeping beside me in bed and it's sunny and nice despite the fact im super sniffly and sick (＾ω＾) hoping you all have similar good vibes
> 
> ALSO UH: notes on how i view hopes peak. this isn't canon but i think it's more fun like this and i do not care about canon. the characters are in their third year at hopes peak and are in their last year of "school" so they're like 17-18-19? idk math. You have to attend a high school prior to hope's peak in order to become an ultimate so it's their twelfth year of school in total. HOWEVER i also think that hope's peak in this universe offers like. two/three years worth of internships run by the school (mostly to just keep an eye on the students.) that makes the most sense to me considering the way talents are managed.  
> So while the cast are in their last year of high school technically they're all still going to be together for another few years at least :D also they have underclassmen. this isn't story relevant i just like to think about it
> 
> ALSO spotify playlist for this here! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0mKsHdFZz9LIXU7f3IZuAy?si=CcqgS1-YQMmRHYk_7Rvvug  
> (not required to listen as you read and its only like 6 songs but they're all canonically playing during the story.)

Shuichi was not exactly a party person. He was happiest in his own room- music in his earbuds, a book in his lap, maybe rain outside, if he was lucky. He wasn’t exactly a dancer, or someone who was enthusiastic about dressing up, and he was neutral at best about most pop music. The last time he was coaxed into sneaking into a bar, it ended with a panic attack in the bathroom which he promptly fixed by slamming six five dollar shots and then staring at Ouma from the bar with a sort of itching jealousy- for him, or the people he was dancing with, his hands in the air, his neck bare and dripping with some kind of glitter?

...Kaede still apologizes about that night, no matter how many times Shuichi assures her it’s just normal for him to cry when he drinks too much. (It’s catharsis, really. Sitting in the gutter and watching his eyeliner drip off his face is deeply freeing in a way that his friends don’t seem to understand.)

(Preps.) 

Anyway- Shuichi’s not exactly a party person, but halloween is an exception. Or at least- this halloween. It’s the perfect mix of elements to make the atmosphere not- tolerable, but actually enjoyable. For one, he’s familiar with the place the event is held at. They’re in the common room of the third year dorms in Hope’s Peak, and if he was still uncomfortable in the school he’s been boarding at for almost four years now, he’d have bigger problems than a halloween party. Similarly, he knows everyone here, and there’s only 16 of them, which makes it much easier to keep an eye on everything. Shuichi can’t quite switch off his observational skills, even with liquor- equal parts paranoia and a brain built to deduce, he guesses. It’s just hard to relax when you’re surrounded with people moving so swiftly it’s hard to keep track of them and your uncle’s warnings about secondary locations and roofies are playing on repeat and you’re watching your very pretty friends interact with strangers like they’re no danger at all. But sixteen people- that’s easy. Shuichi would know instantly if a stranger joined them, if something went awry- his gaze flicks from Kaito and Maki by the punch table, to the collection of dancers, to the casual conversation over by the couches. 

Those are the two main things that are making him comfortable, but there’s more, too- the atmosphere is buzzing, eager for a celebration, a little morbid and anticipatory, too. He likes the pulsing colors of the led lights, the spiders Tojo lovingly hung from the ceiling, the fake blood dripping around the bowl of punch. (Calling it punch is somewhat generous.) They’re even playing music he actually likes, too- he thinks he heard _The Cure_ earlier, and they’ve got MCR on now.  
He’s also fairly drunk. Probably about an hour or another two glasses of whatever the fuck is in the punch bowl from getting to the crying stage, but, again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not so much that he’s blacked out and crying because he’s drunk, but more because Shuichi generally would enjoy a good cry and at a certain point, loses the inhibitions stopping him from doing that. 

He’s leaning back against the wall, watching Kaito and Maki awkwardly flirt- a werewolf and a girl in a very neat uniform quietly talking under the music. Kind of looking forward to his upcoming cry in the bathrooms. Maybe he should do a shot now, go cry, and then go dance. That sounds pretty good, actually. Shuichi considers the remnants of his current glass of violently pink liquid, then lifts his gaze just above the cup- looking over his classmate’s heads to meet Kaede’s eye.

She’s in the center of the room, dazzling as usual, dressed as - he thinks - one of the members of LOONA from a specific video. Which one? He doesn’t know. She can never find out he doesn’t know. (She’s matching with Chabashira, Maki, and Iruma. This clarifies nothing for Shuichi.) She looks amazing, though, even in the very simple costume- white blouse, red skirt, dancing with Himiko the witch and Chabashira in an almost identical outfit, save for the soft caramel skirt instead.   
Kaede looks up over them and waves enthusiastically, then makes a motion like she's beckoning him toward her. Shuichi smiles and shakes his head- not yet, at least. Let him get a little less self-conscious, first. She pouts and mouths something that looks like _"soon,"_ and then looks away to go and drag Tojo onto the dancefloor for a while.

Someone taps him on the shoulder. Shuichi turns, already soft-drunk and ready to chat, and then blanches.

It’s Ouma, grinning wide as ever, arms folded behind his head. Shuichi’s caught glimpses of him during the night- up to his Ouma business, messing with the drinks and arranging buckets of blood for poor Tojo to clean up and fiddling with the decorations and dancing. He's... certainly dressed up. Shuichi's seen Ouma at two halloweens, now, and he always goes all out.  
For the first time, now, Shuichi gets a good look at his costume. He's in a dress- not unusual in itself, because Ouma will steal clothes from anyone and wear anything as long as it's obnoxiously bright, but it's. Short. It has a neat, white collar, with upside down crosses that are a little bit of a mockery, and high, striped stockings. There's also two... horns? Ears? Two black, maybe-bunny ears perched on his head, and his usual colorful makeup. 

And, okay, look, Shuichi gets the sexy halloween costume thing- it's their last year of highschool, even he's been dragged into a stupidly tight pair of shorts by Kaito's peer pressure and some prior liquor, but this-

Look, it just feels _unfair,_ okay?

"Heya, detective! What's someone like you doing all on your lonesome?"

“Um, hi, Ouma-kun.” Shuichi stares at him for a few moments, tilting his head. “What are you dressed as?”

Ouma blinks, looking almost offended by the question. “Kuromi.” He pauses. “But sexy.”

“Ku...romi…” Shuichi looks over the outfit again, trying very, very hard not to stop at the sliver of thigh he can see between stocking and skirt. Maybe halloween is awful, actually. “Like.. my melody? Sanrio?”

“That’s the bitch!” Ouma snaps his fingers, and then gives a little spin. The bells on the end of his skirt jingle and Shuichi might actually fucking die. He takes the opportunity to look over Ouma’s head as he twirls, frantically searching for Kaede’s eye in the crowd.

He meets Kaito’s instead- him and Maki staring in twin expressions of disapproval. Kaito gives him a thumbs up, anyway, but Maki’s face clearly reads nothing but _Oh my god you stupid fucking bisexual I cannot believe you simp for this idiot._

He mouths _I am not a simp_ at her across the room, because even if she didn’t say anything she was thinking it. 

She raises one arched eyebrow. 

“Hey- hey! You’re not looking at me!”

Immediately, Shuichi snaps his eyes back down to Ouma, and- his face is already so hot. It’s the alcohol. It’s the alcohol.  
“S-sorry,” he stutters. “You’ve got my full attention, I promise.” He smiles despite himself, clutching at his drink with both hands like it might steady him. (And to be fair, the concoction of spirits and syrup and _whatever_ Iruma put in isn’t hitting him quite as hard as the way one little sticker heart is glinting in the lights under Ouma’s left eye. 

“I better,” Ouma replies, crossing his arms and lifting his chin. He must be wearing platforms, because when he rocks up onto his tip-toes, they’re almost eye level. (Shuichi allows himself a glance down to check and immediately regrets it, because his brain registers _oh, they are platforms,_ and then _thighs thighs thighs thighs there’s a hello kitty bandaid on his right leg_ ) “It’s dangerous to stop paying attention to someone like me, detective. You don’t know what I might do.” He must be a little drunk, too, because his smile slides like liquid and his eyes seem darker than normal. (Blown pupils, but Shuichi’s not going to overthink it. The lighting is flashing in here, and he’s drunk, and it’s Ouma. He almost wouldn’t be surprised if the liar had found some way to trick the minutest parts of his body into playing along with him.)

Shuichi laughs, slowly taking a sip from his drink. “I’m not too concerned, Ouma-kun.”

“Why not?” Ouma demands, swaying forward on those ridiculous shoes again. The white collar on his dress flaps as he does, two perfect triangles. He lifts one hand, thumb tucked, forefinger pointed, and squeezes an eye shut as he mimes aiming a gun at Shuichi’s head. “One wrong move and I’ll have one of my devoted followers blow your brains out, you know! We’ve got this place surrounded.”

“And spoil the party?” Shuichi counters. “That wouldn’t be any fun for you, right? I’m sure if I really make you angry, you’ll just kill me tomorrow. I know you like halloween.”

Ouma’s smile drops, his painted face all blank. Then it returns- a slow, sly thing, tugging at the corner of his mouth, like the twitching end of a tail.  
He makes a show of lowering the fingergun, tucking it into his pocket and dusting his hands- black and pink nailpolish sliding over each other. It looks new, but he’s already nibbled at the ends. Shuichi shouldn’t find that cute. 

“Your costume is- nice,” he says, and then immediately wants to reach for the fingergun again and blow his brains out himself. “It’s not really what I. expected? Not that that’s a bad thing! It suits you. With, uh, your whole. Evil thing.”

Ouma cocks his head to the side, expression innocent in a way that means anything but for him. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. A sexy clown, or something?”

“I’m always a sexy clown.”

Shuichi doesn’t disagree, but he still chokes on his drink. Ouma laughs at him.

“So what are you dressed as anyway, huh?” He leans against the wall, giving Shuichi a slow and almost certainly put-upon once over. It flusters him anyway. “I especially like the ribbons in the thigh high boots. It says “slutty, but in a tasteful way.” Same deal with the waistcoat and the booty shorts.”

Shuichi opts to just accept the fact his face is going to be permanently red from now on. He’d had his reservations about the costume to begin with, but they’d been somewhat comforted by the fact that Kaito was showing even more skin than he was, and then by several glasses of red wine. 

“A sexy vampire,” he replies, and then, after a pause, gives a hesitant smile to show off the fangs in his mouth.

Ouma cocks his head to the side. “Not very creative,” he says, clicking his tongue. Shuichi feels his face flush.

“I- I was considering a character from a game, but Kaito wanted to be monsters together. I think he felt left out because Kaede and Maki were matching.” Shuichi glances over his shoulder over at Kaito again- this time, when he catches his eye, he gets a big grin in response. It’s easy to imagine the werewolf tail wagging as Maki talks quietly about something Kaito clearly doesn’t understand but still loves. Maybe the humiliation of being a sexy ANYTHING is worth making his friends happy.

Ouma leans down to pluck at his fishnets and Shuichi promptly changes his mind, slapping the thief’s hands away from his legs. 

“What character?”

“Um- There are some- it’s stupid, but there’s some humanoid designs for, uh. For Napstablook? From Undertale?”

Ouma lunges forward to grab the lapels of Shuichi’s stupidly elaborate velvet coat. “Give me your fucking Undertale meta right now.”

“You are not ready for my Undertale meta,” Shuichi replies. He has a seventeen page word document on his Undertale meta. 

“Fucking bet,” Ouma says, leaning back and crossing his arms. “I bet you’re one of the ‘Chara is the narrator and that’s Deep Lore’ types.”

“No, that’s just obvious,” Shuichi replies. “Just like it’s incredibly obvious they’re involved with Gaster in Deltarune.”

“Their soul helped build the vessel.”

“Their soul is powering the dark world, actually.”

“Bzzzt! That’s Frisk.”

“Frisk isn’t in Deltarune. Or, they will be, but briefly. Like, a cameo or a gesture or something. They’re only involved really as a parallel, really. They’re the mirror of Kris.” He pauses. “They came first, though, I think.”

“What about sans?” Ouma challenges. “Isn’t it commonly accepted the skeletons originate from Deltarune?”

Shuichi holds a hand to his mouth, running down to item number _J7- font brothers_ in his mental document. “Ah. Well, they do loop. And exist simultaneously. But there was a period of time where there was no Deltarune, I suppose, is what I’m saying.”

“No Deltarune world or no Deltarune as in the rune itself?”

“Both.”

“You think they’re the same?”

“No, but again, I think that it comes back to Chara, to a certain extent. And Asriel. As always. But also not- the universe doesn’t revolve around them completely. Just-”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD,” Iruma yells- Ouma and Shuichi spin around to face her at the same time, as she wobbles against the drinks table. “JUST GO FUCK OR SOMETHING INSTEAD OF MAKING US LISTEN TO YOUR WEIRD FUCKING FOREPLAY.”

Ouma adjusts his devil-bunny ears and sticks out his tongue. “You’re just not sophisticated enough to understand our foreplay, you depressing little bitchlet.”

Iruma whines loud enough to cut through the music and Ouma turns back to smirk at him and Shuichi wants to die. 

“I think I need a drink,” Shuichi mutters. 

Ouma laughs, lifting a finger to his lips. He watches, as Shuichi takes a few steps from the wall. “Let me know when you’re drunk enough to come dance with me, detective.”

Shuichi pauses, looks back to him. He smiles, despite himself. “I think I’d need to be more sober for that. To keep up with you.”

Something flickers in Ouma’s face- his fluffy, false eyelashes stick against a little jewel on his undereye for a moment. The grin slips a little. 

“Bring me back something fruity and we’ll see,” he says, as he steps away from the wall and disappears between Iruma and Shirogane to dance. 

Shuichi watches him and his thin wrists twist through the air and downs the last of his drink.

He’s not getting out of this alive.

\--

“Hey, romeo,” Kaede teases the second Shuichi makes his way up to her. 

She’s having a great night- She’s been planning this party for ages, and it’s gone… pretty much perfectly. The costumes were a little last minute, just because she’s been distracted with party planning, but she’s never had anyone to match with before- and now she’s in a group, and Maki’s even been allowing photos throughout the night- AND she got a smile out of her, too, when the four of them had bunched up to pose together. (Plus, Kaede got to be Yves. How flattering is that???) No one’s broken anything… major, Tojo has even had a few drinks and declared herself off duty for an evening after Kaede requested she attend as a guest, and she looks _fantastic,_ intricate spider makeup over her face- the six extra eyes look so real Kaede half expects them to blink, and her lipstick is so pretty. Iruma has been pretty well-behaved, too, and Ouma has been in such a good mood it’s like he’s forgotten to ruin the party. Amami danced with her for about five songs in a row, dressed up as Indiana Jones, and Kaede couldn’t tell if she was swooning or just tipsy, but- well. She’d dipped him and he’d laughed with his cheekbones all pink, and when she lifted him up he told her she looked wonderful. (And then he bowed and went to chat with Shinguji, and she went and danced with Angie and that was just as fun- although dancing with Angie is always a challenge to figure out if she’s flirting or if she’s just Like That.)

And the food being good and the buzz of vodka and the fact Kaede has three cute girls to match with and a billion excuses to take pictures and cuddle with her classmates- that’s excellent. The fact nothing has gone horribly, terribly wrong, as it tends to do with their class, is even better. 

The best part, though, she thinks, is that Shuichi seems to be having a good time.

She’s been keeping an eye on him- and he’s obviously been keeping on one her, and everyone else, and he’s seemed… happy. (She was hoping she could score points by borrowing some of his playlists for the party. Emos like halloween, right?) He seems relaxed, right now, about as cheerful as he gets, and she’s just… delighted. Because sure, Kaede loves flirting and loves music and loves dancing and getting tipsy and eating cheap candy, but… Shuichi is her best friend. And if he’s having a good time, the whole thing is beyond a success.

Anyway, back in media res- She’s pretty confident he’s enjoying himself, but he _does_ sort of look like he’s dying of fever right now. “Kaede,” he moans, flopping against her shoulder. “Kill me.”

She pats his arm commiseratingly, and then takes his gloved hands in hers and drags him in to dance, just kind of holding their hands between them and turning their hips. “Cmoooon, come dance! And tell me everything that happened.” She can’t help the grin spreading over her face. “You seemed like you were getting pretty cozy.”

Shuichi complies with the dancing, slowly shifting his feet with the rhythm of the song- and this must be one she ripped from his playlists, because he bobs his head with it and picks up the pace a little. (That, and it’s kind of slow and depressing while also having a very strong bassline.) “Kaede, I actually can’t do this,” he says, then pauses to mouth along with the song for a while. “ _She’s in parties…_ Kaede, he- _have you seen what he’s wearing.”_

“I have, indeed, noticed that when he bends over I receive a full view of his stars-and-stripes clown boxers, yes,” she replies, with a wince. 

Shuichi chokes and stumbles over his own feet. Kaede had had a similar reaction when she witnessed it, but for different reasons. 

“I’m going to die,” he repeats.

“Just keep your eyes above his waist?” She offers. “I mean, I’m sure he’d like you to look-” another choked off sound, as if Ouma isn’t both an attention whore and very obviously into Shuichi- “but maybe for your peace of mind?”

Shuichi droops, his upper body folding over in the middle of the dancefloor. Kaede sends the Shirogane and Amami an apologetic look as they bump into each other, and takes it upon herself to guide her depressed detective off the floor and toward the alcohol. 

Several shots later, Shuichi seems in better spirits. In other words, he’s now talking about how he wants to go cry in the bathroom but doesn’t want to miss the music. Apparently putting on a song he doesn’t like isn’t an option, and neither is replaying one. Kaede is drunk too, so she can’t really fault his logic. 

Somehow she ends up bartending- behind the table, pouring punch and straight shots and syrups when their friends wander over and passing them out. (And maybe drinking some herself.)

“Okay, okay, okay, but did you see Shirogane-san?” She interrupts, after Shuichi brings up Ouma’s outfit for the nineteenth time. She leans over the table to hiss into his ear. “She’s come as Lucy. From _Fairy tail.”_

“I know, I saw you staring at her chest,” Shuichi mumbles, running a finger along the rim of his shotglass. “You are really not subtle.”

Kaede flushes a little, crossing her arms. “Well, it’s different for girls. I already complimented her on them.”

“You complimented her _breasts?”_ Shuichi looks as if this is a completely foreign concept to him. Kaede smiles sweetly as she slides another drink over to him.

“You should tell Ouma-kun his thighs look ni-” 

Shuichi cuts her off with a whine, pushing his entire face into his hands and shoving his hair back. “I can’t. I have to go back to my room and put a cold cloth on my forehead for a while or something. I have to start going to church, Kaede. I’m catholic now.”

“Kind of weird decision for a Japanese vampire to make,” Kaede points out, reaching over to grab his cheeks and squish them until she can see the fake fangs. She giggles in response to his miserable expression, high pitched and embarrassingly drunken. Ugh, she sounds like the most cliche drunk girl ever. Not to say she isn’t the type to compliment strangers in bathrooms, but..

Shuichi pushes her wrists away with a huff, reaching up to rub at his eyeliner. She’d scold him if the smudgy, smokey look wasn’t kind of working for him. “It’s easy for you. You’re pretty, and nice, and talented, and everyone likes you. You could just ask Shirogane out. Or Chabashira-san. Or Iruma-san. Or Tojo-san. Or Angie. Or Amami-kun. Or Maki.”

“I couldn’t do that to Kaito or Yumeno-san,” Kaede laughs, looking thoughtfully over her classmates.

“Ask them out, too,” Shuichi sighs. “I think half the class is in love with you at this point, so-”

He cuts out as the room blinks. Static cuts through the song- the colored lights flicker off, then blue, then red, then off, then blue again, like they’re trying to replay a scene but something won’t let them. 

The music returns and the lights settle down again. After a pause, Shuichi opens his mouth again. “So you really should just ask someon-”

And then everything shuts off completely.

There’s an echoing moment of silence in the dark, before a scream cuts through the air.

Kaede clutches at Shuichi instinctively, crying out in response. “What? What happened?”

“It’s fucking dark as shit what the _fuck!_ ” Iruma shrieks in response.

A bubble of tension she didn’t know she had fizzles out of Kaede’s chest. “Iruma! I thought something bad happened!”

“Something bad _did_ happen, the fucking lights went out-”

“So fix them, you dumb whore! You’re the inventor!”

“Degenerate! Don’t call Iruma-san things like that when you’re asking for a favor!”

“She likes it.”

“Do you want to fucking die, Ouma?”

“Um- Is there anything Gonta can do to help?”

Her classmates voices merge and blur together. Kaede squeezes her eyes shut despite the darkness. “Okay, everyone just calm down,” she calls out. “You’ve all got flashlights on your phones, right?”

“Bold of you to think this costume has pockets!” Shirogane answers, slightly hysterically. Shuichi pats Kaede’s arm.

She pinches her nose, and then fumbles around for a while to pull out her own. The white glare of the screen makes her blink, but she swipes through easily and pulls up her flashlight, aiming it around the room. “Okay. There’s no need to be scared, alright? A fuse probably blew.” She flicks the flashlight back around towards her, which completely blinds her vision but hopefully lets the others see her smile and take some comfort in it.

“This lighting makes you look kind of like a spooky murderer, Akamatsu-san,” Yumeno says.

“Hope’s Peak Academy does not blow fuses,” Shinguji adds, dubiously.

“Okay!” Kaede swings her phone around again, scanning the room. “Let’s just stay calm, okay? It just feels scary because it’s halloween.” She tries to interject a soothing tone in her voice, because she _knows_ her classmates, and she knows full well they will take any opportunity to completely freak out.  
Besides, she’s right, anyway. It’s scary, but power outages are always scary. Especially at night. Especially on Halloween! That’s- that’s scary. Because it’s halloween and they’ve been watching horror movies for the past few days, and because they’re stupidly drunk, and because Shinguji’s mummy costume is kind of creepy in the flashlight- but so is everyone’s, really. The light of her phone is dim. That’s why everyone looks so off. It’s why Maki seems to glitch against the wall.

That’s why there’s not so much a chill creeping up her spine but a moistness to the air, like some cold mist has seeped through the cracks in the door and sunk into their lungs.

Just because you’re terrified doesn’t mean there’s anything to be terrified of.

"The school isn't picking up," Kiibo says uncertainly, lowering his phone from his face.

"Not for me, either," Kaito mutters.

“Iruma-san and I will go and check the breakers,” Kaede says, slowly. Her mind is clicking through plans like a film reel, stained with alcohol and a little out of order. She thinks she makes sense of it, though. “The rest of you, stay here, and buddy up. Shuichi and Kaito are in charge until we’re back, okay? And make sure there’s at least one phone per buddy group. That way we can all keep track of each other in the dark!”

“I’ll acquire some candles, if someone should like to accompany me,” Shinguji offers, lifting his phone. The bandages around his arms drip from him like wax- but nearby, Angie waves cheerfully and bounds over to cling to his arm, a mummy and a fairy paired up together. “I’ll just be going to my room, if everyone else will remain here?”

“Good plan!” Kaede smiles at him, already weaving around the others to reach Iruma. “Okay, does everyone have a partner?”

“I call dibs on Shumai’s buddy!” Ouma cries. Kaede turns back and aims her phone at a bright red Shuichi yelping and stumbling on giraffe legs as he’s glomped.

“Tch,” Kaito mutters, but when Kaede aims the light at him, he has his arm around Maki’s waist- who was looking bored and unconcerned moments ago but now looks more terrified than Iruma. Kaede gives her a sympathetic smile she can’t see.

The others partner up- Chabashira bounces over to protect Yumeno, Hoshi leans against Gonta’s side and unwraps a lollipop with a grim expression, Kiibo in his Human costume shrinks behind Shirogane’s back. 

“Excuse me,” Tojo says, softly. Kaede, midway through counting her classmates, looks over to the spider maid. The intricate eyes on her forehead seem to glitter in the dark. “I believe Amami-kun is missing.”

The class goes quiet.

Kaede scans through them all again, counting and recounting. One, two. Three and four. Five six seven eight nine teen- eleven, twelve, fourteen- fifteen, counting herself. It makes her dizzy- the alcohol has turned, now, twisted in her stomach to something sour. She’s making herself sick with the way she spins the light around.

Fifteen.

“Amami?” She calls out, her voice hovering a little in an awful, tremulous way. “Amami-kun?”

The others join in- Shirogane and Kiibo, almost in chorus, and then Shuichi behind her.

“Oi, Amami!” Kaito calls out, hands cupped around his mouth, voice booming through the room. 

“Rantarou-niiiii-chan!” Ouma calls out, in the obnoxiously innocent voice that always gets him out of trouble with Amami. “Big brother Amami-chan! Are you playing trick or treat?”

“Maybe that’s it,” Yumeno says, her voice shaky as she tries to hold a smile. Kaede can’t flick the light between all of them fast enough. “Maybe he’s playing a trick on us.”

“Ouma might, but Amami?” Hoshi asks, pushing at his cat ears. “I have a nasty feeling about all this.”

Kaede thinks back to just- it can’t have been more than an hour ago, dancing, dipping him, watching him laugh and duck his head. Her heart thudded in her chest then, and it thuds in her chest again now. 

This time, it feels like it hurts.

She swallows.

“Tojo-san, you go with Iruma-san to check the breakers,” she says, softly. “Shinguji-kun and Angie can get candles. The rest of you stay here and listen for Amami-kun.”

“What about you?” Shuichi asks, in that careful tone of his that says he knows what she's thinking and doesn't approve.

Kaede exhales, slowly. She forces her cheeks into a smile and fights off the fear again. (Because it's irrational. Because there's no reason to be worried.) "I'm going to go look around for Amami-kun!"

"No," Maki replies, coolly. "Not on your own."

"The others can look when they go out, too," Kaede argues. "Tojo can keep an eye out while Iruma works on the breaker. You all stay here and see if he returns. Shinguji and Angie can call for him while they go back to the dorms- they can check his, too. I'll just go by the bathrooms, okay? I'll be right back."

"Kaede, you can't-" Shuichi is interrupted from a yelp from the other end of the room; Kaede swings the light over to see Chabashira fumbling in her brown skirt for her phone, pulling it out and turning the light on as Yumeno clings to her arm, hiding under her oversized hat.

"Tenko and Himiko-san can come with her!" She calls out, holding the light above her head as if for dramatic effect. "Tenko will keep them both safe while we look for Amami-san... who is probably not lost! He's probably just... playing a trick or forgotten about us, or fallen asleep, because he's lazy. Like all boys."

"She doesn't miss, huh?" Hoshi mutters.

Yumeno, hands trembling a little, presses herself into Chabashira's side. "Th-that's right!" She stammers. "I- I would cast a light spell, but... I don't think we need one, with our phones.... I c-can hold the torch while Akamatsu-san searches and Tenko protects us!"

Chabashira looks like she might tear up. "Y-you trust me to protect you?"

"Okay!" Kaede says, before it can dissolve into any more flirting that, while she would very much like to either encourage or participate in, she probably ought to shut down so they can leave in the next century. "Then there's three of us looking for Amami, two going to the breakers, and two going for candles. And eight back here. Stay close to each other, alright?"

"I have a bad feeling about this," Kiibo mutters, twisting the edges of his t-shirt (part of his "human" costume) between his cold fingers. "I think we should all stay put."

Gonta leans over to pat his head, too caring to be condescending. "Don't worry!" He says, gently. "Gonta will look after everyone, and Chabashira will look after Amami!"

"R-right," Chabashira stammers, tugging at her skirt.

Kaede scans the room again. She counts, for a last time. Fifteen of them, all in groups. 

Tojo and Iruma move to stand on one side of her; Tojo with a gentle bow, Iruma tugging up her knee-socks and reaching at the coat table for her pocket tool box. Shinguji and Angie move toward the doors at the back, leading to the individual rooms in the dorm complex. Chabashira and Yumeno shuffle up to Kaede's side- Chabashira blushing when Kaede smiles at her despite everything.

She takes a breath.

"Right! Let's go, everyone! Turn your phones on and stay in touch, okay? Keep trying to call the school until we're back."

The group mumbles their assent- the room lights up as phones switch on and click through chats and contacts. Shinguji and Angie leave first, with a solemn nod and a cheery wave- and Iruma pulls Tojo out the door soon after.

Yumeno touches Kaede's arm. "Let's go," she says, softly- so much braver than she was when she first joined the school- although maybe that's the whiskey she was sipping earlier. "Where first?"

Kaede looks back at Shuichi for a last time- he's standing with Kaito and Maki, Ouma hanging from his neck. He stares at her without saying anything, unblinking, and then slowly nods. In his makeup, in this lighting, he might be a real vampire- especially when she smiles, and he smiles back, his plastic fangs glinting in the dim light.   
Especially with how his eyes still look so dark.

"The bathrooms," Kaede says, linking her arm with Yumeno's and smiling when the mage giggles. "Maybe he got stuck on the toilet!"

The three of them head out into the hallway with one last glance back, following Shinguji and Angie's footsteps.

"Amami-san?" Chabashira calls. "You better not be playing a joke!"

"Amami-san! It's okay if you're scared of the dark! We've come to rescue you!" Yumeno adds.

Kaede holds her tight.

Hope's Peak Academy has an odd layout for a high school- but the academy's never really been _just_ a high school. It's a symbol, more than anything- sure, they do produce fascinating studies and incredibly prolific child prodigies, an almost one hundred percent success rate despite its bizarre methodology. But really, it's a sign of... hope. It's here to symbolize talent and progress and some innate quality that makes some people destined to do great things. 

That's probably why it's built so _stupidly._ The grounds are unneccessarily large, the main school building split into your standard classrooms, greeneries, general school facilities. Then there are the talent labs, scattered over the ground- groups devoted to the mechanically minded, the scientific, artists, curators, politicians and leaders, incredibly niche talents curated to in these huge blocks spread over the grounds.   
And behind those, there are the dorms- split by year level, each one big enough on its own to justify an apartment complex, getting grander by year.

As third years, their dorms are incredibly nice- particularly with the renovations done two years prior due to an unfortunate incident involving a gas stove and the reputable Komaeda-senpai. Long, arched hallways, a pool on the roof, a games room and intricate living quarters, their individual rooms upstairs above the kitchen, the common room, the bathrooms. 

It doesn't feel _quite_ as nice when it's pitch black on Halloween and you're making your way down the seemingly mile-long hallway from the common room to the men's bathrooms. 

When the beam of her flashlight meets the men's bathrooms, Kaede lets out a soft sigh of relief. Her fingers brush the smooth door, hesitant even now. 

"Amami-kun?" She calls, quietly. 

"Amami!" Chabashira yells, echoing in the dark. Kaede winces a little, and then freezes as some other sound aches out from the bathroom in response.

Plumbing? Amami? The wind, an animal, something she just imagined? She pushes the door open a crack, sweeping her light over the ground.

Nothing. No further noise except the drip of a tap.

"Why do they make these bathrooms so big?" Himiko whispers, clutching at Kaede's white shirt as she slowly steps inside. 

Chabashira is quick to bounce up to her other side, poised, ready to strike. Her pretty eyes flick over the room around them, like she doesn't even need Kaede's flashlight. Yumeno is cradling the other phone against her chest, making the light fairly useless, but Kaede doesn't have the heart to tell her.

Yumeno is right. The bathroom is big- big enough to be a comfortable dining hall, a row of sinks on the wall to their left, stalls to their right. Further into the room, there's a pit that descends into a hot bath- classical style, with woven mats and polished stones tucked around it. It should be empty, currently. Kaede moves forward to check inside and it feels like the room stretches out a million miles away.

"Amami?" She calls again, and her voice comes out in nothing but a whisper.

A maintenance closet to the left, which they are forced to check inside- nothing but mops and cleaning fluid, and she can't tell if she's disappointed or relieved. They reach the edge of the bath, and with her phone held at eye level, the dim shapes she can make out underneath make it look like it's filled with ink.

She lowers the light.

Empty.

"Looks like he's not here?" Chabashira whispers.

"Looks like it," Kaede agrees, slowly turning the three of them around- one hand on Yumeno's back, Chabashira glued tight enough to her side that they move as one. 

They inch back out of the dark bathroom- somehow the tension's just as high as before they entered. Maybe it's the lighting. That quiet, slow, sound of the tap. The fact that it is so unsettlingly quiet otherwise.   
Maybe it's just concern for Amami, or the alcohol setting poorly in her stomach.

Kaede flicks her phone around the room, just in case, over the floor in front of her, the walls, the row of sinks, back to the door-

...ah?

"What?" Yumeno whispers frantically. "Why did you stop?"

She had stopped moving? Kaede lifts her hand again, shakily, turning to the left and aiming her camera back at the sinks. She takes a moment to lick her suddenly dry lips.

"All the taps are off," she whispers.

A pause. Something drips behind them.

"So.. what does-" Chabashira cuts off at the same time that Yumeno makes a very low, soft sound.

All three of them turn back to the stalls on the other side of the room. Kaede aims her light at the bottom of the doors.

Something dark shines when the light hits it.

Another drip.

No one says anything, but they all decide to bolt at the same time, sprinting out of the bathroom and sending the door shut with a bang, sprinting back down the dark hall. Kaede can't breathe, can't breathe, thinks she might be sick, some staccato beat forcing itself through her bones, rattling her heart out of her chest-

"Kaede!"

She shrieks as she stumbles forward, as something catches her- and then her face lands in something soft and warm and Kaede is just gay enough to be momentarily distracted by the presence of titty to forget her terror. 

And then she remembers it again and grabs a bemused Angie by the shoulders to shake her. "Where's Shinguji?"

"Right here." The anthropologist steps sideways, into the light of Kaede's phone squished against Angie's arm. "Is everything alright? Where's Amami-kun?"

"I've read this creepypasta," Yumeno wheezes, clinging onto Chabashira's side. "I- it's the dog's head, it's- you look in the shower and it's the dog's head-"

"Oh god," Chabashira murmurs. "H-himiko-san you have to let go, I'm going to be sick-"

"Be sick on me! I'm not letting go!"

Angie looks between the three of them, petting a hand through Kaede's hair almost soothingly and guiding her back down to her bosom. Kaede would be extremely appreciative any other time. "What happened, Hi-mi-ko? Did something bad happen to Rantaro?"

Kaede swallows, her whole body shaking. "It... we don't. We don't know."

"There was blood," Chabashira gasps. "In one of the stalls."

"Blood?" Angie tilts her head to the side. "Amami's?"

"We don't know." Kaede squeezes her eyes shut. "It was fresh. Dripping. We- we ran away."

"Well, that was foolish," Shinguji says, chastisingly. She opens an eye to glare at him, but he just smiles under his bandages. "But how very human of you. Fear of the unknown is always worse to us- I'm sure if you had actually seen what it was, it wouldn't have terrified you so." He extends a hand- she's not sure to who, but she clutches tighter to her phone and extracts an arm from around Angie to reach for it and grip tight. "Shall we go back and check, together? It's the nature of humanity to flee from what scares us, but I'm sure you're burning with curiousity, Akamatsu-san."

She grips his hand but glares, anyway. "I'm worried. About my friend."

"Ah, even despite your fear? How marvellous."

"C-creepy degenerate," Tenko mutters. 

"Hey," Kaede mutters, pulling herself up to take both his and Angie's hands, because even if Shinguji _is_ weird, and unsettling, and she kind of wishes he were anyone else right now, the entire class does have a "Be Nice To Kiyo While He Goes To Therapy For The Rest Of His Life" pact arranged after his minor psychotic break last year.  
(He's doing better now. Kaede likes to think her weekly fro-yo dates with him have helped.)

Yumeno shrinks back towards the group again, pulling Chabashira in with her. "I- I don't have to look, right?"

"You can go back to the others, if you want, Yumeno-san," Kaede tells her softly. "Maybe you could bring the candles?"

She shakes her head stubbornly. "I'm staying with Tenko."

Kaede coos over this for a moment before Shinguji speaks again. "Ah, that reminds me. Angie, if you would get the matches?"

Angie claps her hands. "Ah, of course, of course!"

There's a flicker of flame, and then warmth, yellow light flickering around them as they make their way down the hallway. Shinguji takes a candle-lamp and lifts it up above the smaller members of the group, letting the shadows of the flame dance over the walls.

"Great," Kaede mutters, quietly. "Now it's even _more_ creepy."

Still, she feels a little braver, having other people with her. Not that she doesn't have faith in Chabashira's skills, but... it's nice to be in a group, bunched up tight, Shinguji's height a steady presence, Angie's warm hand in hers. 

She's sure they'll all laugh about this later, she thinks, passing an arched, stained window. It'll be a fond memory of the time they all panicked about Amami, who was just getting more snacks, and her and Shinguji and Yumeno and her adoring fans all crept down the dorm like characters in a gothic horror.

They'll laugh at this later, she thinks, and then the window up ahead shatters and the candle is blown out.

It's a good thing she still has her phone, she thinks, faintly. Otherwise they'd be in a blackout again.

And then they wouldn't have seen it.

\--

They aren't able to call the school. Multiple people try- Kaito, Shirogane, Gonta, growing increasingly more restless and frantic, but no response comes. They all just sort of hang around in the dark, staring at their phones, making the anxious sort of jokes you do in the dark. The music's still playing (thank you, bluetooth), but it's been dimmed a little in case Amami calls out to them. In case.

Kaito is trying to get everyone to play spin the bottle while they wait. Shuichi has previously explained to him that this is probably not the most effective way to kiss Maki and that it, in fact, is probably giving her mixed signals instead. He assumes he's trying now because they've been reduced to half their previous numbers and Shuichi is not going to play, so he thinks he has better odds or something. 

"Hey, hey, hey, detective." Ouma, swaying up on his ridiculous boots, pokes Shuichi's cheek. "Whatcha thinking?"

"About Amami," Shuichi replies, watching the others gather together on the floor, waving off Kaito when he gestures him over. He's tapping out a rhythm on his hip, looking around the dim light.

Ouma leans both his hands on Shuichi's shoulder, propping himself up to peer over the others. Shuichi feels a little rush in his chest at the fact Ouma isn't running over to play. "Thinking of the mystery, huh?"

"He must have left before the blackout," Shuichi murmurs. "But he didn't tell anyone where he was going. It would make the most sense that he was headed to the bathrooms or the kitchen- he wasn't expecting to be long at all. I saw him dancing with Kiibo a few minutes before the lights went out- I remember because Kaede had pointed me over to look at Shirogane-san's-" He cuts himself off quickly. Blame the vodka. 

"Her tits? I saw her staring at them earlier."

Shuichi shuts his eyes. Dammit, Kaede. "I wasn't looking myself."

Ouma sighs dramatically. "I knew I shouldn't have binded tonight."

Shuichi glances sideways at that, tapping at his side. "You mean bound?"

"That makes it sound so cheesy. Like I'm a victorian dandy using bandages. My poor bound chest."

"Binded isn't grammatically correct, though. I don't say I binded my files, but I put them in a binder."

"You don't say you- do you say you bind your files when you put them away?"

"I. Okay. Well, I do say my chest is bound."

"When isn't it? I've seen you fall asleep in that thing."

Shuichi blows out a breath quietly, looking sideways. "You have your unhealthy habits, I have mine. Fifteen."

"What?"

He looks back at him from the dimly-lit door, continuing the steady tap against his side, one for every second. "It's been fifteen minutes since they all left. It should take about three minutes to get to the bathrooms- ten to get there and back, allowing for the time it should take to search. Between the dark and the fear, they're probably moving more slowly, though, so I guess that could explain the extra five."

Ouma follows his gaze back to the door, his face unreadable. "You'd think they'd run back."

"Mm."

"What about the breakers? They're around the back of the dorm, right?" Ouma definitely knows this, because he has shut them off multiple times before. Shuichi frowns at him.

"Right. Twenty minutes there and back- but I can't account for however long it'll take Iruma-san to either fix them or assess the problem. I guess we'll only know if they come on again." He curls his fingers up, taps with his knuckles now. "Shinguji and Angie should have been back by now, at least. Shinguji presumably knows where the candles are- but maybe they also stopped to look. Or maybe they found him and have to carry him back; but why not send someone ahead? Sixteen."

"Sixteen," Ouma repeats, singing out the word. "It's kind of been a while, huh?"

"I'm going to go look," Shuichi decides, taking a step forward.

Ouma lowers his hands from his shoulder and immediately clutches his arm instead. "Well, you better take me with you! Seeing as we're buddies, and all."

"Right." Shuichi smiles despite the anxiety churning in his stomach, offering out his elbow. "Shall we?"

"What a gentleman! I'm swooning over here, vampire lord." Ouma bats his overly decorated eye lashes as they walk, linking their arms together. "What if you sweep me away to take me to your dread castle, huh? What if that's what you did to poor Amami-chan? You swept him up and seduced him and drained all his blood."

Shuichi laughs, half anxiety and half at how stupid the image is. "I don't think I could make Amami swoon if I tried. He's very much out of my league."

Ouma makes an affronted noise. "And I'm not?"

"You are the one holding my arm," Shuichi tells him, glancing over his shoulder to smile at the liar as he reaches for the doorknob.

And is promptly knocked onto his ass, pulling Ouma down with him, as five people barrel through the door and slam it shut behind them.

Shuichi sits up, rubbing the back of his head, and then makes a strangled sound as he realizes the position they've landed in- arms still linked together, Ouma sprawled over his fishnets, his stupid lacy skirt pooled between Shuichi's legs. His phone, knocked sideways, lights up all the sharpest points of his features, makes his eyes glint in the dark.

Ouma, as usual, doesn't look flustered at all, and just leans forward, propping his hands up on Shuichi's chest as he leans forward, eyes all dark and liquid. "Well hey there, stranger. Come here oft-"   
He's cut off as Chabashira yanks him up by his scruff, shaking him in the air like a disobedient animal. 

"K-Kaede?" Shuichi stutters, shuffling backwards on the ground and fumbling for his phone. "What happened? Wh-" He cuts off again, another sound ripped from his throat. "You're bleeding!"

"It's Angie's blood!" Kaede cries, slamming her back against the door. Her white blouse is stained a dark, wine red, splatters coating the sleeves and the base of her rose colored skirt. "It- oh, god."

"W-what's going on?"   
Shuichi looks over his shoulder to see Kiibo kneeling on the ground, the others all scattered behind him, staring at the door. 

"There's a monster," Himiko says faintly, helping Angie to a chair and making little squeaking noises when she sets her down. "A- a monster, with t-teeth, and- and eyes- and-"

"Oh shit, you okay, Angie?" Kaito stumbles to his feet, Maki sliding out of his lap as he makes his way over, both her and Hoshi following close behind.

"Tis but a flesh wound," Angie hums, but her voice cracks halfway through and her hands slide around her shin, wet with blood. 

"Ah," Himiko says, staring up at the ceiling. "I saw bone."

"Here, Momota-kun, come help block the door," Shinguji says, calm as ever. "I'll use my costume on her. A good thing I came as a mummy, no?"

Kaito glances back and forth, then moves over to join Kaede and Chabashira at the door, barking at Gonta to pull a table over to help block it. 

"What the fuck happened?" Ouma demands, adjusting his fake ears and rubbing the back of his neck.

"We-" Chabashira is cut off, suddenly, by a _thump_ against the door, so sudden and so forceful that she's knocked back from it. Immediately, she bounces back, hauling Kaito with her and lifting her head. "Gonta-san, hurry with the table!"

"What the hell was that?" Kaito demands, his head falling forward as it bumps again. "Kaede? What's going on?"

Kaede looks around frantically, then darts away from the door to go and help Gonta with the table. "No time!" She gasps. "Just come-"

Whatever is behind the door crashes against it again. And again.

Shuichi backs up instinctively.

And then the hinges of the heavy wooden door snap open like the clasps on a corset, and the people by the door stumble forward, and something. Something just tramples over them.

Two hands- long, spindled fingers- or claws- or feet- they force their way through and push down, gouging out the door as the creature pushes into the room, the sheer girth of its shoulders making the doorframe strain against its mass. It's all one rippling muscle- pallid and translucent, something dark floating under its milky skin, and as it stretches out into the room, it seems to grow impossibly bigger, fitting itself in like some congealed liquid, pus and milk and pure vitriol staring out over them with eyes- eyes. Eyes like a demons, slit-pupils flipped upside down, floating in radioactive yellow, and then- there's nothing else but teeth.

It opens its mouth, dark as tar, inky pondscum drooling from its open maw, and its teeth seem to extend for miles, laced together and extended out like an anglerfish. It screams, and it's the worst thing Shuichi's ever heard in his life- like a child, dying and squealing in excitement all at once. Like a wolf's howl. Like nails on a chalkboard. Air whistling out of a hole in your throat. It screams, and the whole world seems to freeze.

And then it leaps onto Shinguji and everything happens at once.

The world explodes into noise- the creature is so large that it's impossible to push away, and its teeth rip through Shinguji's hair and his costume until red blots the fake bandages, ink in water, and he yells and Shuichi chokes and stumbles back. 

Chabashira yells and kicks it backward, strong enough to shove it away but not strong enough to do more than struggle when it wraps those long, spindly fingers around her midriff and lifts her to scream in her face and throw her to the wall.   
It turns, then, to leap at Kaito, who yelps and punches it clean in the face, which does nothing but make it scream louder. One hand claws down the mesh covering his chest- the other slams sideways to knock over Maki as she runs to help.

Shuichi can't watch, so he follows her, shouting Kaito's name, grabbing a bottle from the table as he runs. He smashes it on the creature's long, unnatural side, gibbonous and twisted, and watches the vodka soak its skin and the shards of glass shatter and stick through its flesh, some black liquid bubbling at the pierced spots of its skin.

It sinks its claws into Kaito's side and turns to scream in his face. Shuichi's eardrums shake like he's been physically knocked over- he doesn't even have time to regain his balance before it's dropping Kaito and leaping for him instead, dragging lines of hot, burning pain up his side as it forces him back and bites for his neck. Shuichi wants to scream, opens his mouth, has nothing come out but a choked gasp of pain.

"Back, fiend!" He hears Angie yell suddenly, and then a candle is thrown towards them, snapping against the ridges of the demon's spine. It breaks, rolls sideways, hits the spilled vodka on its back;  
and sets the creature alight.

Shuichi's mind fixates and freezes when he panics, which is why it feels like the whole world slows down and why he is able to note three instances of incredible luck for himself.

The first, obviously, is that the candle snapped in such a way that it found contact with the spirits soaking through the creature's body. It catches quickly, eating up the fuel and sinking hungrily into the flesh beneath, burning it white-hot until the space is filled with the smell of scorched rot.   
The second is that the creature recoils and reacts so suddenly that there's no time for the fire to spread to his own coat- as soon as the fire makes contact, the creature screams again, an even worse sound now, and leaps backwards from Shuichi, twisting furiously as if consumed with this new, sudden change.  
The third is that, as Shuichi's mind ticks forward before his body can even move, noting the way it suddenly loses attention to grab at Maki and then drops with her to roll out the flames- it's that the creature seems far more bothered by the fire than the previous wounds. He can see its skin frothing when it rights itself, scarred and damaged, dripping black blood down the rest of its body.

Of course, it seems to immediately recover, but it gives him a little... not hope. But it's something for his tipsy mind to cement in on. 

"Shuichi!" Kaito cries. "Are you okay, man?"

Shuichi pulls himself together, wincing at the scrapes along his tailcoat, red already beading through the fabric. "It's not that deep," he tries to reassure him, shouting over the other noise. "Let's get to Maki!"

Kaito pats his shoulder and drags him forward, the two of them running through the dark, weaving between flashing phone lights to reach their friend. As they go, Shuichi glances over his shoulder. 

"Ouma-kun!" He calls. "Go look for..."

All he sees is the lace of Ouma's skirt flipping up and floating through the door out to the halls before Kaito drags him in to help Maki. And there's no time to worry, not when you're grabbing anything you can, half-chasing and half-fleeing from this unnatural thing in the pitch black common room. There's no time to worry, but he worries, anyway. What's Ouma up to? Is he going to be safe?

But Maki is smashing a vase into the side of the creature and it's snarling and bounding through the room on all fours to slash over at Gonta, now. It turns between person to person- like it's not here to feast, just to tear and pull apart and destroy. They strike back against it, try to draw its attention from the wounded, and it seems to be enjoying itself and wrapped in a broken, furious anger all at once, screaming as it lifts its head and destroys the decorations Tojo spent all evening hanging up.   
But they try to protect each other, fear too strong to be felt anywhere but the base of their stomachs, shoving friends out of the way, smashing vodka bottles, reaching for its clawed hands with thick, fake spiderwebs.

Fighting with a feral sort of desperation in the way only truly drunk teenagers can.

Shuichi ends up crouched under a table, ducking from the violent screaming and clutching the wounds at his side. He really wasn't scratched that deep, but the hooked claws _hurt,_ and his heart is pounding like he's one breath away from a panic attack.

"Cmon!" Shuichi looks up to see Ouma's hand gripping the sleeve of his velvet coat, shining nails on dark fabric. "Help me get to the kitchen!" 

His eyes almost glow in the dark, something important there. Shuichi wants to ask _where were you_ and he wants to say _I was so fucking worried,_ but Ouma is here and there's something urgent in his eyes, and Shuichi lets it go. He looks up and assesses the chaos. 

"Okay," he murmurs, tensing his legs. "Run when I tell you."

The beast is throwing itself around- it's like it can't quite decide who to devour first, but it won't be happy if it doesn't take a bite out of them all. It's beaten back, slowly- Gonta roaring as he smashes a chair over its mottled spine, Chabashira delivering kicks that seem to twist and snap its neck as it lunges for her, darting back only to meet it again when it tries to attack one of the girls by her side. Kiibo and Hoshi stand on the drinks table, Kiibo frantically dropping coins and keys and vodka bottles into Hoshi's open hands, which he throws with rapidfire precision. The monster swallows a shard of glass and is crushed under Gonta's hands and it seems to howl in pain- but then it bounds forward again, all teeth and eyes and almost fingered claws. Even in the lack of fire, it seems to burn, that white skin translucent and unbreaking as it takes teenagers and tears them apart. 

It leaps onto Gonta and Shuichi twists his hand to grip Ouma's wrist in turn. "Okay," he breathes, and then he drags him out and pulls him into a run. 

The monster shrieks again and Gonta gasps in pain and he can _hear_ when it leaps and lands behind them, but there's no time to look back, nothing to do but push and push and pound down the long, black hallway. 

There's no light, just the shrieking howls and the sound of shouting and glass breaking, so Shuichi has to run by time and by touch, working on previous memories of the dorms, his own familiarity with the school. The hall slopes downwards, just slightly, and he yanks Ouma sideways, skidding through something wet on the floor and juking around the stairwell to continue the run down the halls. From the crashing sound and the roar behind him, he thinks it works- the monster might see better than them in the dark, but it doesn't know the dorms like they do, is too focused on its prey to turn quick enough. Shuichi knows that quadrupedal predators have trouble with corners. He knows that claws scrabble on smooth floors. He knows that the sole advantage they have here is wits.   
Ouma laughs slightly hysterically at the sound, their twin pairs of stupid boots thumping on the floor in synchronized bass. 

He skids forward and shoves Ouma into the kitchen, following shortly after and slamming the door behind them. The beast roars and slams at it, and Shuichi's eyes slowly adjust to the dark to watch Ouma scrambling to balance himself, stumbling around the counters as Shuichi pushes all his weight up against the door. 

"What now?" He gasps, blinking as Ouma's phone flickers on and the light sweeps over the room. 

"Well," Ouma hisses, "we-"

He's cut off by a sudden yell, and then all the pressure against the door springs off at once, the creature shrieking like some kind of haunted child as its claws scrape the floor and twist to break off and chase some other student down the hall. 

"You keep watch while I do what I need to!" Ouma cuts in, and then hurries over to scurry to the dishwasher, grabbing handfuls of cloths and paper towels. Shuichi stares at him for a moment, his lopsided bunny-ears close to breaking, the stained lace around his thighs, and something snags in his chest, tight and syrupy all at once.

Ouma looks over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "Chop chop, detective! Make yourself useful!" One of the upside down triangles under his eyes seems to drip a little. A star falls off his painted cheek.

 _Oh,_ Shuichi thinks, drunkenly. _I think I'm in love with you._

He smiles. "Whatever you say, supreme leader." 

Shuichi turns to open the door because the expression Ouma makes in response to that is a little much for his already drowning heart right now, and pokes his head out to examine the hall, taking the time to actually use his phone to scan it this time. It's empty- save for clawmarks and an incredibly disturbing pool of blood at the base of the stairwell. He glances back into the kitchen, taking the time to look for anything useful, and his gaze lands on a set of cooking knives. 

He's fairly certain they won't be much use. He's already seen how the creature shrugs off most physical damage, has noted how the blunt trauma doesn't seem to pierce its skin nine times out of ten, how when Hoshi launches homemade shrapnel into its brain, it leaks nothing but ink, thick as sap.

Pain does slow it down, though. It doesn't seem to _like_ bleeding. 

Shuichi reaches for the knives, and for the first time properly, really appreciates the multiple belt aesthetic as something practical and useful and not just incredibly cool. Thank you, Kaito, for allowing him to add extra buckles to the outfit. Thank you, Tojo, for having proper knife covers that means he can fit six knives into the belts around his waist and shove one into each boot and another up his coat sleeves. Ouma works quietly across the room, but the crashing sound of combat vibrates around the dorm, something roaring above them, that same childish shriek echoing through the hall only to be followed by an all too human cry of pain.

He's never had to fight something with knives before, but he feels slightly safer now that he's about sixty percent pointier. And also kind of badass. Does Maki- no, he definitely shouldn't ask that. 

Shuichi laughs, mildly hysterical- good god, he is drunk, but still, he gives a little spin in the dim light and spreads his arms to show all the weapons hidden under his coat. "On a scale of one to ten, how stupid do I look?"

Ouma glances over his shoulder, midway through lighting a cigarette. He grins. "Oh, zero. Most badass vampire detective I've ever seen- you just need a pair of handcuffs, now, and you'd be the coolest person here."

"Who's my competition?" Shuichi asks, watching Ouma wrap the still-lit end in a soaked rag, then that in newspaper. The creature howls in the distance.

Ouma smiles sweetly as he lights the ball and it explodes into flame. "Me, obviously."

Shuichi lunges forward just as the heat swells, grabbing Ouma by the elbows as it bursts into fire. Ouma yelps, his dark gloves flickering into fuel, and quickly tosses the ball into the wastebin- but not before the ends of his hair burst into bright light and then quickly die out again. "What are you doing?" Shuichi shouts, leaning over his shoulder to take his hands and check them for burns. Ouma freezes for a moment and then swats him away, picking up his phone again and reaching for something on the counter- cooking gas, it reads, when Shuichi spots the label on it.

"I'm fine," Ouma says, taking the canister and pouring it out away from the bin (which is already consumed, the fire growing rapidly.) He doesn't move away from Shuichi, leans back against him instead, allows his hands to hover at his sides as he pours the entire liquid over the floor, dragging it along to the electrical sockets and flicking on every single appliance. "C'mon, we've gotta bounce before it catches. I already turned all the stove elements on."

"You-" His words are swallowed by the _boom_ of the waste paper bin as it- explodes, right there in the kitchen, consumed with fire, and Ouma is elbowing him backwards, forcing them both out of the kitchen as the fire roars and chases itself down the line of gas- before meeting the countertop, where gas must have been leaking from the stove for the last five minutes, and everything goes **whoomf.**

It's like all the air is sucked in towards the fire, the room immediately raising by three times its prior heat, and Shuichi can't even protest when Ouma begins shoving them both toward the door, just stumbles out after him. 

"Why the fuck did you do that?" Shuichi shouts as they run, fumbling for his phone again to light their way. "Are you insane?"

"You saw it!" Ouma yells, wobbling slightly as they run- after a few moments of stumbling, he grips onto Shuichi's arm and doesn't let go. "It hates the fire!" He grins, despite the charcoal now smeared on his nose and the singed ends of his hair. "I already set another upstairs- don't worry, detective, I've got experience with this sort of thing."

"Should you be admitting that to a detective?" Shuichi yells back.

"Hey, I'm saving your life right now!" Ouma winks as they ricochet back into the common room- almost sprinting directly into Iruma, who grabs Ouma's arm as soon as they step inside.

She looks awful, blood smeared on her green skirt, oil on her shirt. "Fuck, you dumbasses," she manages to wheeze. "You gotta get out of here, the fucking dorms upstairs are blazing- Momota and Harukawa are up there tryna keep it in the fire, but we've gotta bounce, the sprinkler system is down with the lights!" 

"The monster?" Shuichi asks, struggling for breath. 

"Upstairs, I just said- ugh, just get out of here!" Iruma shakes her hands through her hair, anxious gesture, then rushes for the door before glancing back. "Hurry up, flat asses!"

He wrinkles his nose at the insult, but double checks his set of knives and then grabs a few of the extra alcohol bottles lying around- he's got a lighter and a half-empty pack of cigarettes in the singular pocket in his dumb sexy waistcoat. If the creature breaks out, he can hopefully do... something.   
Kaito and Maki run into the room, slamming the door behind them. Already the heat is beginning to consume the dorms- Shuichi wonders briefly how it's spread so fast and then remembers the gas heating that powers the facility. He meets their eyes and nods once, heading with them for the back door.

“Hold on!”

Shuichi does, despite the panic gripping at his throat. “Ouma-kun, we have to go!”

“I know, I know, just-” When Shuichi turns back, he sees Ouma frantically pulling at the zips on his ridiculous boots. “You think I can fucking run in these? I’ll break my legs!”

“Shuichi!” Kaito calls. “We gotta go, man!”

Shuichi looks back to Kaito, waiting by the door, then to Ouma again, struggling with his buckles.

A burning rafter falls from the roof and shatters like a quake on the wood floor.

“One second,” he says, and proceeds to run back to Ouma’s side, stumbling drunkenly onto his knees on the floor and taking the other boot into his lap.

Ouma makes a surprised sound for about a second before Shuichi begins fumbling with the other zip. The smoke is starting to congeal above them- like a stormcloud, like something thick and toxic. He can still hear the creature shrieking in pain. 

“I don’t think I could manage these shoes sober,” he says, like that’s the important thing to focus on.

Ouma laughs. “Fuck it,” he says, and then he reaches down for the knife sticking out of the top of Shuichi's boot. And then he promptly begins sawing off one shoe. 

Shuichi takes this as his cue to start snapping buckles. Whether it’s adrenaline or just pure panic or _whatever,_ he manages to free one striped-stockinged foot from its prison, and Ouma is quick to deal with the other, and then Shuichi is hauling them both up.

“Come on!” He yells, as they sway drunkenly, gripping onto each other’s arms, and the creature screams again and there’s a crash as it shatters through the ceiling. They look back, for just a second, to witness it- bald and misshapen and melting, frantically trying to beat out the fire.  
It looks up at them. Its eyes are not quite yellow. Pupils like a goat, body like a wolf.  
It feels like the world glitches and refocuses on the singular point of light in its gaze.

And then Kaito yells again and there’s nothing to do but grab onto each other and run.

\--

Shuichi and Ouma are the last two out, closely following a Kaito who’s yelling at them both and a stone-cold Maki. Kaede counts and recounts because it’s either that or pass out in fear. Her hands won’t stop shaking. She’s already been sick, but she doesn’t feel any more sober. 

The fire spread so fast. Tojo and Iruma returned mid-fight, yelling about broken fuses and the blaze upstairs that was visible from the breakers- Iruma had given up on fixing the lights to come back and help them. And then Maki decided to take advantage of it, leading the creature upstairs while Kaede evacuated everyone else.

"Is it dead?" She asks, heart in her throat, as the last four approach them.

Maki nods, wringing out one of her pigtails. "It collapsed just as we were leaving- and if it isn't, it's in no state to escape the fire now. I broke its legs."

They all turn to stare back at the building as it blazes. Kaede thinks about all her music trophies and family photos and bras she spent way too much money on.

"You know," Shirogane says, wincing as she adjusts her wig. "It feels kind of weirdly early in the horror movie to jump to _burn the entire place down."_

Kiibo scratches at his cheek awkwardly. "...From what I know of the genre they tend to build more suspense first, yes."

"Sorry I'm so fucking sexy and proactive," Ouma snips, folding his arms. "You're all just jealous you didn't think of it first."

"The fact that you're so familiar with how to commit arson is mildly concerning," Shuichi mutters. Kaede raises an eyebrow at him, pointedly looking down to where he's still holding Ouma's arm. He flushes and looks away. 

"Well," Kaede says, trying to lift the mood a little, even if her heart hasn't stopped pounding and she thinks she needs to be sick again. "...We should probably head back to the main school, right?"

"These boots were _not_ made for walking," Shirogane grumbles, leaning over to adjust the laces. Kaede gives her a cheeky grin that's only partially faked.

"At least you'll look good running for your life?" She offers, earning herself a pleased laugh in response. "Come on. We... probably have some explaining to do, but I'm sure they'll believe us, right?"

Shuichi makes a quiet sound, moving forward to stand up by her, Ouma trailing behind him like an rpg companion. "Ideally, some part of its body will be left behind- it's clearly sturdier than a human, but the fire will likely get fairly hot. We'll have to look for other evidence, but I doubt they'll think we _all_ decided to commit insurance fraud with this kind of lie... besides, there's still... Amami."

"Amami..." Kaede bites her lip. 

"We'll find him!" Gonta says, giving her a slightly bedraggled pair of thumbs up. Maybe it's the rapidly-setting-in-PTSD of the whole event, or maybe she's drunk, but seeing the fact that two of his intricate praying-mantis costume legs have fallen off and the broken wire in his antenna have crumpled suddenly has Kaede on the verge of tears. "Amami is smart! He is probably on his way, getting help, right now!"

She sniffs, but gives him the thumbs up back and he beams like everything's okay. 

"At least the monster's dead?" Kiibo tries, with an awkward little victory dance.

"You're welcome," Ouma replies cheerfully, reaching back to fuss with his hair. Several people glare at him. "Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do."

"It did work," Shuichi points out. This might be true, but anything Shuichi says has to be taken with a grain of salt, considering his unfortunate case of Simp With Bad Taste disease. (It's terminal.)

Kaede sighs and rubs the ash off the end of her skirt, then stretches her arms out in front of her, cracking her knuckles. "Right. We should probably head back to the school, then?" 

Maki shakes her head, moving over to stand by her and Shuichi at the front- and of course Kaito follows, too, and then a few other people, until the whole group has bunched up together, glancing ahead into the dark of the night. "The alarms will have acknowledged the faculty in the main building and they'll send someone over soon. It's probably safest to wait here rather than walk through the dark."

"Fuck me," Kaito says, shrinking a little closer. "Why does this stupid fucking school have to have the third year dorms out in the _woods?_ " 

"To accommodate the now-blazing zen garden and set us closer to the talent labs outside the main academy," Tojo says, calm as ever. Somehow, she still looks neat and composed- she hasn't even taken off her heels, and all the spiders on her clothes are still perfectly pinned into place. 

"This school fucking sucks," Hoshi mutters. 

Kaede sighs, readjusting the pins in her hair and wishing she'd brought a hair tie instead of a cute apple broach. "Alright. Let's go sit at a distance, then?"

Maki nods, and starts forward without looking back. She doesn't have to, of course- it's not like the rest of them have anywhere else to go.

Kaede glances back over her shoulder to stare at the building- it's almost entirely consumed by fire now, sirens ringing out helplessly. She can see the foundations of it turning black as the decorations drop off, metal and concrete and valuable materials melting away.

"The school still isn't picking up," Yumeno says, holding a phone to her ear and shifting anxiously. "N-neither are the fire department..."

"Something must have happened to the reception here. Or to the cell tower. Hope's Peak provides its own network, but there should still be a public backup..." Shuichi mumbles, already deep in thought. 

As a general rule, Kaede thinks Shuichi worries far, far too much... but here, she can't help but agree with his tone. Something is... off, about all this. Something is unnatural here. Unsettling.   
Why has no one come to help them?

"Something's wrong," Maki says, voicing exactly the same thing she's been thinking. Kaede blinks and looks over.

"What do you mean?" She asks, trying to be gentle about it. "Do you think someone messed with the powe-"

"No," Maki says, and her gaze has gone cold and sharp in a way that Kaede _hates,_ that simultaneously makes her want to shrink away and pick the girl up to tell her her past doesn't define who she is now. "Something's dangerous. There's something wrong about this place."

Kaito scratches under his chin, above the fake collar. "You sure, harumaki? Maybe it's just residual nerves."

A shriek echoes out behind him.

Slowly, they all turn.

 _A second fucking monster,_ Kaede thinks, faintly, staring up at the hill behind their dorm, off-center to the dorms. It's too dark to make out any distinct features, but- those eyes. Those glowing, hateful eyes. Of course. Of course. She should have expected.   
How could it have been that easy?

"Scatter!" 

Kaede runs, and runs, and runs, her heart pounding in her chest, her lungs screaming, and she keeps going even when she thinks she can't, even when her brain says _hey, it's probably safe to stop now,_ and then _hey, you should look back and check up on the others,_ and then, a little more urgently, _you need to find your friends._ She keeps running despite it, running despite the pain rapidly spreading through her body, the ache overtaking her lungs and her limbs and her conscience, but she just- it's like she's forgotten how to stop, which part of her mind she has to switch on to actually move.

She only stops when she trips on a root and goes sprawling, choking on tears and bile on the forest floor, shoulders heaving as she breathes. She pushes herself up, shaking, and stares around the dark woods. No glowing eyes look back at her, no triumphant shriek echoes out.

"M-Maki?" She calls. "Kaito? Shuichi?"

But she's all alone.

\--

“Well, this is one of my worse halloweens,” Ouma says cheerfully, swinging his arms as they walk. 

“One of them?” Shuichi asks, aiming his phone at the ground ahead of them. His battery’s at seventy percent, thankfully. They have a lighter and three bottles of raspberry smirnoff, as well as a series of pocket knives. They can maybe handle a few more monsters, are ready for the demons howling around them. (They can’t. They super can’t. They’re going to super super die.)

“It’s a close second to the time some guy tried to roofie me and then I switched our drinks and he puked on me while I was taking his wallet and then he had zero dollars and I got kicked out for thieving when _he_ started it,” Ouma replies.

Despite himself, Shuichi huffs out something like a laugh. “An example of the justice system at its finest,” he quips. 

“Ooooh, is this where I get to hear about all your trauma with the police?” Ouma asks eagerly, skipping a few steps so he can catch up and lean against Shuichi’s side as they walk. The light is dim, but Shuichi can still catch a smile when he looks sideways, smell his singed hair and his bubblegum bodyspray.  
Their hands bump as they walk. He extends his fingers. Ouma takes them.

“Why do you think I have trauma with the police?” He asks.

Ouma rolls his eyes- Shuichi can’t quite see the whole motion, but he can feel it, the unsaid _well, duh._ “You work closely with the police for your talent and you’re not a pig. Anyone who hangs out with the police too much gets trauma.”

“Mm,” Shuichi says, noncommittally. He squeezes Ouma’s hand- something wails off in the distance like it doesn't approve. “That’s why you have private investigators, I guess.”

“Ni-shishi.” Ouma’s laugh echoes around the woods, a little silvery. Shuichi can’t see the moon overhead when he looks up, but he feels it watching them, anyway. “Will you catch me when the police can’t?” He pauses, tilting his head a little so the ends of his hair brush over Shuichi's collar. "Or will you leave that to the monsters?"

He tightens his grip on Ouma's hand again- involuntary, this time. "I'll do my best."

Ouma laughs, the sound rich in the cold air, like the tart, tightness of a plum or a drumskin. It reverberates in the base of Shuichi's throat. "How comforting!"

"I'm sure you've seen scarier," Shuichi murmurs.

Honestly, Ouma's presence makes the whole ordeal a little less scary in itself. Not that Shuichi isn't fully expecting (and coming to terms with) their inevitable deaths, but he's glad to have him here. It's a miracle they didn't get separated when everyone scattered, earlier- Shuichi's worried. For Kaede. For Kaito and Maki. For Himiko. For everyone out there, stumbling around the dark woods, alone.  
But at least, like this, he doesn't have to worry so much for Ouma. Sure, he's concerned about the inevitable attacks they'll face, but he doesn't have to live in some kind of quantum paranoia- at least he'll know. At least he'll be able to help. At least here, he can offer some comfort to someone, in the far-too silent woods, in the aching stillness of it all-

Shuichi holds out his other hand and stops. Ouma stops too, clearly bemused.

"Ouma-kun," Shuichi whispers, softly. "Get one of the bottles ready."

"Detective instinct?" Ouma questions, but he pulls a bottle out of his bag with a clink that makes Shuichi wince. The sound feels far too loud, right now.

"The howling," he explains, voice far too soft. "It's stopped."

"Oh, good," Ouma says, mildly. "I was thinking I'd gone insane.

It's approximately two seconds after he says this that a beast leaps out through the trees. Shuichi yelps and pulls them both backward, Ouma rolling with the motion and twisting to the left, lifting an arm to lob the bottle back at the creature as soon as there's distance between them. Shuichi fumbles for his knives and his lighter all at once, just a beat too slow- his phone goes spilling out of his hands and the monster shrieks as it bounds forward again, shoving him to the ground. 

He scrabbles about on the dirt again, desperate- grabs his phone and flips it over to light some part of the clearing, the torch too dim to keep more than a small radius visible. He sees flashes of the creature's eyes glowing just beyond, though, watches it gouge out the earth as it stalks forward, watches it prepare to leap again-

"Hey, asshole!" Ouma's body seems to merge with the night- one gloved wrist flailing through the air. "Over here! I'm more fun!"

And the creature twists like a cat preparing to spring- and it does.

Ouma, with his bold personality, bigger than words, bigger than life, bigger than anyone in any room, looks tiny when he goes down, and when he cries out- it's the first time Shuichi's ever heard him express any kind of pain like that. He struggles, and kicks, but the monster leans down and sinks angled teeth through his shoulder and Ouma shouts again- but this time, Shuichi catches his eyes in the phone light, sees the way he manages to smile despite fucking- everything, watches him kick up violently and change his wail of pain into something resembling the word _lighter._

The monster slashes across Ouma's cheek and Shuichi sees red. 

He throws three knives before he can process it- one missing, one landing flat on its back and falling off, the third embedding right in the nape of its neck - and the creature turns back toward him, snarling, with _Ouma's_ blood dripping from its mouth and Ouma's skin on its claws, and Shuichi throws a fourth knife and grits his teeth as it leaps for him again.

This time, he lifts the lighter, and when it lands he's prepared to roll away.

It keeps fighting, through the fire, but they smash a second bottle and he lights it again and Ouma is bleeding from his right shoulder and from his cheek and Shuichi is kicking the creature as it burns, because if anything needs to succumb to hellfire it's this. 

He stands, chest heaving, as it finally dies- skin melting and bubbling until it bursts and all the thick black ink inside it comes gushing out. There's no bones to be seen, just those neon eyes rolling back before it shatters. Shuichi waits, holds his breath, and counts, as he watches its remains soak into the earth and fill the world with the smell of rust.

Then he turns to Ouma and looks over him frantically. "Are you alright?" The panic is really setting in now, as he brushes the hair back from his face and rolls up his sleeve. "Let me see, I- I'm so sorry, Ouma-kun."

"Am I still pretty?" Ouma asks, sniffing dramatically- and if any of those tears are real, Shuichi won't ever know, and he won't ask, either. But the few that drip down past his own eyeliner are terrified, weak, nothing but genuine, as he pulls Ouma into a hug.

"God," Shuichi whispers. "We're going to die."

Ouma pats his back as if he's the one bleeding out of his arm, with ink-spittle spattered all over his white collar. "It's alright, Shumai," he sings. "At least we'll make history."

Shuichi demands to check him over three times before they move on; one half of him intensely focused on listening out for more ambushes, particularly now they're down to one alcohol bottle and he's failed to find two of the knives he threw. Ouma, surprisingly, acquiesces, and maybe he's more shaken than he looks, because he's quiet when Shuichi rips off the tails of his waist coat and wraps them around the wound on his shoulder, and he doesn't even smirk when Shuichi cleans off the blood on his face, carefully cleaning the scrapes on his cheek.   
They sit there, for a moment, before Ouma points out that they should keep moving. Shuichi nods shakily and helps him up, and tries not to think about how close those jaws were to his throat.

They keep walking, and they keep walking, and they keep hearing snarls and having to divert their course, to run and hide out and shudder at the base of trees before sprinting off in a different direction. At this point, they're not even making an attempt to get any less lost- no path will be found in this darkness that doesn't have to be abandoned at some point. They're going to be chased, no matter what they do.

That's partially why, when they find an old, abandoned building, Shuichi thinks he might be hallucinating.

It's built in the same style of most academy buildings- sleek, overly elaborate. The vines covering it now were probably once elaborate, but when they force the door open and step inside, the rot in the air proves that the way ivy has choked out all the light in the building wasn't designed to.

"This looks like one of the abandoned talent labs," Shuichi murmurs, brushing aside a mass of cobwebs. 

"Hm." Ouma flips over some papers on a desk- Shuichi moves to stand behind him and try to glean some meaning from whatever's written there, but it's all just slightly illegible. A few letters stick and then dissolve again; he could maybe decode it with more time, but he's drunk and tired and nothing has made sense to him for a while now. "I've hung out in the abandoned labs a bit. I don't recognize this one."

"You hang out in the old labs?" Shuichi asks, looking up from the papers.

Ouma grins, swaying backward. "Mm-hm! They're a good place for secret evil business, since no one ever comes down there. Plus, I love the creepy vibe they have. Isn't it so cliche?"

"Aha, I guess..." Shuichi trails off, staring at the desk again. He keeps thinking about their earlier brush with death. And how stupid he'd been. And how convinced he is that they're going to die today.

It's just. It's not fair. 

It's not fair.

“Hey, hey hey hey!” Ouma says, suddenly. Shuichi barely has a chance to turn to face him before Ouma’s arms are reaching up, winding around his neck.

"W- h- bf?” He manages, Ouma’s face only inches away. 

The liar’s grin grows even sharper, until he slips back, his hands linked around the back of Shuichi’s neck. “I didn’t get to dance with you at the party,” he explains, slowly swaying sideways. “C’mon, indulge me. Sing me one of your emo goth boy songs. I know Akamatsu got the playlist off you. No way she listens to MCR.”

Shuichi’s hands move almost without permission, sliding around Ouma’s back and pressing into his shoulderblades. “I have an awful singing voice,” he says, the last word wavering around a laugh.

“I won’t tell,” Ouma promises, and maybe his grin looks like it’s softened, or maybe Shuichi is drunk and his heart is still pounding, or maybe he’s still convinced they might die at any moment, but after a moment he withdraws a hand to fumble in his pocket.

He pulls out his phone, checks the battery, heads to his music. Selects something suitably dreary and sets it down on a nearby desk.

The song opens with a slow selection of keys, a simple but dark melody that’s easy to step into, his hands sliding back around Ouma’s sides. Ouma seems happy enough, closing his eyes and swaying with it and only laughing at him a little.

Shuichi clears his throat, which earns another laugh, and steels himself. He would never do this if he weren’t drunk both on liquor and adrenaline- but here he is, slowly shuffling over the dreary carpet with Ouma in his arms, and when the vocals start, he joins in.

“ _In her place, one hundred candles burning-_ ” he sings softly, and then cuts off in self-consciousness as the lyrics continue and Ouma opens his eyes.

“No, no, keep going,” Ouma insists, and he’s smiling in a way that makes Shuichi’s stomach dip. “Woo me, vampire lord.”

Shuichi laughs, but manages to collect himself in time to join in with the next few lines. “ _Her hips move, and I can feel what they’re saying- swaying,_ ” he hums, taking the opportunity to sway them both sideways with the song, dipping them both to the left. Ouma laughs delightedly, hanging even tighter onto his shoulders. 

“What?” He asks eagerly, impatient in the heavy pauses of the melody. There’s a split second when Shuichi thinks _I am going to look so fucking stupid and it’s entirely Kaito’s fault_ and then he remembers he might die at any second and decides he doesn’t care. The vocals of the song are deep and rumbling enough that he hopes his awkward quietness is covered.

“ _They say the beast inside of me is gonna get ya, get ya, get…_ ” He leans closer as the lyrics trickle out- not really out of any intended flirtation. (God knows Shuichi can only be charming on accident.) It’s just that kind of song, the slow build, violent and dark and romantic and heady, like a glass of wine drunk too fast.  
And then it drops, falling into something even heavier, the crash of drums running through, and he has to pull back and grip Ouma’s sides and really sway with it. There isn’t really any choice. He’s drunk, and he’s with one of the most charming people he’s ever met, and there’s blood on his hands and his shirt and one of his favourite songs is playing.

And Ouma is cheering, whooping as the reverberation kicks in and the melody is brought up into something rich and dark, lifting his arms up and dancing like he dances when he’s in the middle of a bar, surrounded by people admiring him.  
Shuichi admires him enough for all of them, slowly pulling his hands away to give Ouma enough to space to drop and headbang and spin and then sway back towards him, hips angled together. 

It’s loud enough - or maybe they’re just drunk- that Ouma has to call out over the music. “This is what my mild-mannered detective listens to?”

Laughing and blushing at once in answer, Shuichi reaches for his hand, and Ouma offers it like a gift. _“I am your servant; may I light your cigarette?”_ He sings, and his voice is so high and patchy compared to the song, but Ouma looks like he’s never seen a better performance.

Hands above their heads, scintillating in the rotting air- it smells like metal and raspberry vodka and smoke. Shuichi’s missing a fake fang, and Ouma’s white collar is marred with mud and blood-ink and if his makeup is this smeared, Shuichi’s sure his must be completely atrocious. 

It drops back into instrumental, and Shuichi can only watch Ouma running his hands through his feathered, berry-stained hair, fucking it up as he rocks sideways. 

“Ouma-kun-”

“Call me Kokichi!” Ouma opens his eyes from whatever sort of dance-trance he’d entered, and they’re just as sharp as ever. “Since we’re about to die and all!”

“Kokichi,” Shuichi repeats.

“Shuichi!” He replies, cheerful as ever, dancing closer, tossing that dark hair back, lifting his chin. Shuichi reaches for him, pauses, still swaying, and he gives a nod that’s less like he’s granting permission and more like he’s commanding it. 

“Kokichi,” Shuichi says again, and the grin he gets in response must be what sunlight feels like to a real vampire. 

Kokichi, with Shuichi’s hands on his hips, shuts his eyes again and twists his hands through the air like some kind of incantation as the vocals kick in again. 

Shuichi almost opens his mouth to sing along, but shuts it again. 

_Let me love you too._

_Let me love you-_

_“To death,”_ he rejoins with, far softer than before, but he does pull himself a little closer, and Kokichi opens his eyes again, and it’s- 

Maybe it’s the music, or maybe he’s getting progressively drunker, because nothing has shifted in Kokichi’s face to change the way his grin sits on his cheeks.  
Or is it the angle- is it the way he’s leaning up on his bare feet, pressing their foreheads together, sliding his hands up, fingers curved to the nape of Shuichi’s neck, palms pressed to his throat like the precipice of something dangerous. 

They still sway like this, like it’s something easy, as those hands push past and link behind his neck again. 

“Kokichi,” Shuichi repeats. The song is wailing now, high and plaintive, crashing in every sense of the word. 

“Do you think we’re going to die tonight?” Kokichi asks, his eyes scanning Shuichi’s face. Shuichi knows there’s no point lying to him.

He does, anyway. 

The second he says “no,” Kokichi’s blank face curls into another smile, like a secret.

“That’s a shame,” he says. “Because if we were going to, I was about to offer to let you _love me to death~,_ O tragically repressed detective.”

“I’m not repressed,” Shuichi mutters, but he’s pulling Kokichi closer anyway.

“Uh, it took a significant amount of alcohol and our inevitable, oncoming deaths to get you to stop flirting and actually make a move, goth boy,” Kokichi tells him. 

Shuichi smiles at him mildly, nudging their noses together. “That’s funny, considering you haven’t actually made a move yourself. Are you saying your idea of flirting involves antagonizing me, running away when I get too close to you, and stealing my things?” 

He’s close enough that he can only see the corner of Kokichi’s mouth twisting into a scowl. If he tilts his head, it’s only to see more of it. 

“It’s cute,” Kokichi insists. “It’s fun, it’s flirty. It’s the detective-thief dynamic. You’re into it.”

“If I kiss you now, are you going to run away like you did when we played seven minutes in heaven and you teased me for six minutes before kicking the door open before the time was up when I tried to hold your hand?”

“Oh my god. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on that.”

“I’m sorry you’re so repressed your only way of flirting is confusing me-”

Kokichi kisses him before Shuichi can say any more. He thinks this is proving his point, but he’s forgotten what the point was.

The song continues its descent into velvety drunkenness as they kiss, rich and full and a little dangerous. Kokichi bites his bottom lip, and Shuichi pulls back, forcing himself to ignore the affronted sound it earns, to reach in his mouth and pull out the other stupid fucking vampire fang, spitting out the gum with it and then leaning in to return the favor. 

“A shame,” Kokichi says, when they part again so Shuichi can stare at his mouth. “I was kind of hoping you might-”

“Please do not make whatever kind of vampire pun you were going to make,” Shuichi says, kissing his jaw.

Kokichi laughs and tosses his hair back, making a show of baring the expanse of his neck and giving a little shimmy that’s too dramatic to be anything but stupid. “Are you saying you _aren’t_ tempted to-”

“If your next sentence contains the word ‘suck’ I am going to go outside and scream until the monsters find me.”

“I can think of more interesting ways to make you scream.”

Shuichi bites his neck pointedly. Kokichi yelps and pulls at his hair. Shuichi grabs his arm in response. Kokichi knees his upper thigh. Shuichi laughs. Kokichi’s eyes glitter.

They tumble over the classroom, torn between kissing and quipping one-liners- against walls, on desks, falling on the moulding carpet until Shuichi sticks his elbow in an particularly soft bit and has to strip out of his coat and inform Kokichi it’s the first thing they’re going to burn. The song ends and another one comes to play, equally dark and moody, equally flirtatious. Eventually they end up on the teacher’s desk, Shuichi kneeling, Kokichi half sitting next to him, half sprawled in his lap.

Kokichi shifts one knee sideways and Shuichi gets a handful of lace and thigh and he decides that if he dies tonight, he might be okay with that.

Suddenly, Kokichi pulls away mid-make out, “Just so you know, we are basically committing ourselves to death if we do this.”

Shuichi pauses and stares at him for a few moments. He does not remove the hand on his thigh.

“We’re breaking the major horror movie no-no,” Kokichi then deigns to explain. “No fucking or you die.”

Shuichi rolls his eyes, a laugh sputtering through his teeth. “The major horror movie rule right after _don’t go off into the woods?_ Or after _don’t get drunk?”_

“Well you don’t need to be mean about it,” Kokichi pouts, pinching the skin on the back of Shuichi’s neck. 

“What about _don’t burn your one spot of shelter down?”_ Shuichi replies, laughing and reaching up to catch his hand.

Kokichi sticks out his tongue. “I’m feeling mocked. Are you mocking me? Is this how you treat all your cornered criminals, detective?”

“Detective?” Shuichi asks, leaning back in to kiss Kokichi’s nose. “Is this roleplay or just more flirting?”

“Welllllllll…” The word is drawn out almost lavisciously, dripping from the liar’s tongue like honey. Kokichi frees his hand from Shuichi’s and lifts a finger to his lips, the other suddenly tugging at the tie around his throat. “If we’re going to die tonight, I have a couple things I’d like to knock off my bucket list.”

“Do I get to know what they are?” Shuichi asks, pulled in tight, reaching up to brush the unruly curls from Kokichi’s face.

Kokichi grins, leaning in until their lips are brushing. “Isn’t it your job to _deduce,_ darling? I’ll give you a point for every one you figure out.”

“Your kinks or items on your bucket list?” Shuichi responds, as if the pet name hasn’t absolutely liquified his insides and set loose a stupid amount of butterflies in his stomach.

Kokichi laughs again, a puff of liquor. “What’s the difference, again?”

“I think I can guess a few, phantom thief,” Shuichi replies, and if he’s smiling when he cradles Kokichi’s head and pulls him in for a proper kiss, Kokichi can’t judge. He is too, after all.

\--

Stumbling around, drunk and bleeding, in the woods of her high school with nothing but her phone for light- is markedly one of the worst experiences of Kaede's life. In fact, she thinks she's reached new heights of misery right now, completely lost and alone, and she's had to stop walking to cry twice.

She pulled herself together, though, because she had to- because what else is there to do? She's got it, now. She's got a plan.

Step one: find literally anyone.

Step two: figure out what happened to the others.

Step three: rescue Amami.

Step four: profit?

Sure, there are no further details to it, but give her a break. She is far, far too drunk for any rube goldberg machines right now. It's a miracle she can walk in a straight line.  
...That is, she hopes she's been walking straight. There is an unsettling but very possible chance that she may have been spending the last hour going in circles.

The woods are awful, dark and deep, and she's tired and weary but there's miles to go before she can sleep- and she has promises to keep. She has promises to keep.  
The mantra helps keep her in check when she hears the shrieking of the creatures in the distance, when she starts to falter with fear or with weariness. She has people to find.

Based on the time on her phone, it only takes her about half an hour to do so- but based on her gut feeling, it seems like a million years before she stumbles right onto a scene of- _war._

Kaede stares out at her friends as they weave between trees, too busy and vibrant and many to count, fire flickering over their faces as they fight for their lives. (She notes iruma tojo hoshi gonta shinguji kiibo shirogane- and then the creature shrieks again and her attention is drawn back to the combat.)

"Shinguji-kun!" Shirogane yells, and then, from seemingly _nowhere,_ she produces a bottle with a rag and lights it before lobbing it at the creature- a molotov, like Kaede has only seen in movies and intense video games she doesn't like. The improvised bomb hits the demon and spreads rapidly, fire licking at it like a punishment.

It shrieks but does not die, instead sprinting over to Shirogane, and the next thing Kaede knows is her feet are carrying her forward and she's snatching a heavy branch from the ground and she is leaping onto the monster.

"Akamatsu!" Several people chorus, but she can't respond- too busy being tossed backwards and winded, and pushing herself up again. The fire will kill the creature- she knows that. All she has to do is stop it from getting to the others or putting itself out.

Her palms sear as she pushes them into its sides, but she grits her teeth and shoves, as hard as she can, as fast as she can, sending the monster sprawling over its spindly limbs before she can rapidly pull her own hands back, gasping for air. It rounds on her again and howls, and she howls back. She picks up her stick again and aims for its joints, its spine, snaps out its teeth, and it's a fight that would be doomed if it weren't for Iruma sneering and yelling for its attention right when it pinned Kaede down.

It dies not long after, but the adrenaline doesn't fade- Kaede almost can't move under its crushing pressure. She stares around at them all as they rush over to her, checking that they're here- they're really here. Alive and injured and bedraggled, but here they are. She counts, one, two, three and four, five six seven...

And then she glances sideways and she sees Amami and that makes eight.

Her shock must show on her face because he laughs, softly, and moves to kneel down by her. "Hey, Akamatsu-san. Glad to see you're in as high spirits as ever."

"Akamatsu-san, please allow me to see your hands," Tojo says, bowing her head as she moves to sit, too, taking both of Kaede's hands in her own. Kaede gapes as she stares between them all- Kiibo fluttering over to tell her how pleased he is that she's okay, Shirogane admiring her bravery, Shinguji thanking her for providing a distraction before it could devour him. Even Hoshi mumbles something and calls her a kid, and Gonta looks almost close to tears with relief.

She loves them all, smiles at them and assures them she's okay, but her eyes can't help drifting back to Amami.

For one, he's- back. And alive.  
For another, he's missing an arm, and that's kind of a major thing to process.

He clearly notices her staring and smiles, anyway- his eyes are so tired, and blood is beading around the makeshift bandage on his arm, but he still laughs, softly. "As you can tell I've had a bit of a rough night."

"Amami-kun got attacked by monsters right at the start of the night," Gonta explains. "He tried to lure them away from the dorms, but... there were already others there."

Amami winces, rubbing the back of his neck with the only hand he has left to do it with. "Ah, yeah. Shinguji told me you guys probably found my arm in the bathrooms... sorry about that." He's battered in other ways, too; scratched and bitten and pallid in a way that only blood loss can do.

Kaede stares at him for a long moment and then sighs, lunging forward to throw her arms around him. He freezes up for a moment- then slowly, reaches up to set a hand on her back. 

"I'm just glad you're okay," she whispers into his shoulder.

"You know," Kiibo says, a little awkwardly. "They're doing marvellous things with prosthetics at the moment."

Amami laughs, and then Kaede laughs, and cries a little, and she sits back and turns to smile at Kiibo, too. 

"Right," she says. "And I'm sure the school will help subsidize."

"Oi, Bakamatsu!" Iruma yells.

Kaede looks up and startles as something is lobbed at her across the clearing. Hurrying to catch the stick being rapidly thrown her way, Kaede grabs it and stumbles to her feet. She turns it over to examine it, blinking. It looks like a metal baseball bat- rusted and covered in moss. She gives it a swing to test it out. 

Hoshi grunts approvingly. "You'll need a weapon from now on," he tells her.

"What about you?" She offers, holding out the bat. "Wouldn't you make better use of this?"

The athlete reaches up to adjust his cat ears, his eyes hollow. "I don't need something like that to kill."

 _Loving the atmosphere we have created in the spooky woods tonight,_ Kaede thinks but does not say. Instead, she claps her hands and swings the bat over her shoulder. "Thanks so much, guys! I'll make sure to, uh. Kick some demon ass!"

"Gonta will help you however he can!" Gonta says, and it is so painfully earnest her heart aches.

"Alright!" Kaede says, twirling around to face the others like she can't feel dried blood sticking to her skin. "Well, we have a path now, so we should probably get going! Let's make some progress finding our way back!"

“Why does Hope’s Peak have a fucking _forest_ on school grounds?” Iruma mutters. “And why’s it gotta be so big?”

“It’s a symbol of prestige,” Tojo says, gently. "Much like the multiple swimming pools and advanced but somewhat unnecessary computer systems."

Shinguji tilts his head to the side politely, cradling his face in his hand. "What is our goal then, Akamatsu-san?" He asks. "If we do find our way back, then what? What's to stop us from running again?"

Kaede pauses for a moment because... really, all things considered; she just wants to be out of these stupid, freezing, terrifying woods. "Well... Really, I just want to find the others. I think we'll have a better shot at that when we're back! And we can retrace their steps."

Amami frowns, still wrapping his arm around his torso and swaying awkwardly. "It's probably dangerous for us to group together. I'm sure they're attracted to larger groups of people."

"Well, we split up earlier to avoid that, and I'm not doing it again," Kaede tells him hotly. "We're sticking together. "We'll find... something. We'll find a way out."

He sighs softly, then leans over to ruffle her hair. "Of course," he says, fondly. "You're not the sort of person to let anyone down."

"Of course I'm not!" She tells him, pumping her fist. "Now stay still and let me adjust this tourniquet, and then we can get moving!"

Amami accepts his medical treatment fairly well- and with help from Tojo, they manage to stop the bleeding almost entirely and get him too his feet. He adjusts the duffle bag around his neck a little awkwardly, but insists on walking on his own. Shinguji hovers close to his side, his gold eyes shifting through the trees to keep an eye on anything that might run for their most vulnerable party member. Shirogane and Kiibo walk on either side of Iruma, Gonta and Hoshi flanking the group. Tojo sticks right by Kaede's side as she moves forward, eyes fixed on the flashlight illuminating the path in front of her.

They walk. And walk. At least with a path here, Kaede has some idea of where she's going, but that doesn't mean it isn't exhausting, moving slowly, hiding out, remaining constantly on edge. When they enter a small clearing, she is relaxed to find it empty, and then immediately tense when she realizes just how exposed she suddenly feels. 

Then three familiar figures emerge from the other side of the clearing, and Kaede lets out a delighted laugh as she spots them- the wave of relief is like a morphine hit.

"Chabashira! Yumeno! Angie!"

"AKAMATSU-SAN!"

Kaede stumbles back, dropping the bat as Chabashira launches at her, but she laughs delightedly anyway, even more so when Yumeno and Angie follow right after her, and all four of them are squeezing each other tight. "Oh, I was so worried!" Kaede says, rubbing her cheek against Chabashira's. "My girls!"

Yumeno pulls back to squeeze Angie's hand, her eyes watery and tired but light. "Tenko's been fighting off the monsters for us! We can't kill any... but she kept us safe to run!" Her cute face rearranges in a pout, suddenly drooping. "We've done so much running... I'm so tired."

"And look who else we found!" Angie points sideways, giving a pair of jazz hands, and Kaede gasps delightedly, squeezing Chabashira tighter as another pair emerge from the trees.

"Kaito and Maki!!! You're safe!"

They are. Bruised and beaten and Kaito's poor excuse for a costume leaving him almost nude, but safe. (The ears are gone, but the tail still hangs from his shorts.)

He gives her a thumbs up, a scrap of fabric dripping from his wristband. "Course we are! You think the luminary of the stars and Harumaki can't handle a couple of fucked up dogs?"

"I told you, they're not dogs," Maki replies quietly, ripping a sheet of fabric from her plaid skirt and stuffing it into his hand with an order to bandage his ankle, before marching ahead to Kaede and pulling her into a hug. Chabashira steps aside respectfully, so Kaede can hug back and bury her face in Maki's shoulder, feel her dark hair. She still smells a little like her perfume, dark and rosy, even under all the blood and ink. Kaede curls her fingers into her shirt and pulls her close, and they cling to each other for a while, just breathing.

Then Maki pulls back and clears her throat, cheeks tinged pink as she looks sideways. "I'm glad you're safe, Kaede."

"Of course she is!" Kaito, from seemingly nowhere, scoops them both up against his chest and squeezes. "It'd take a lot more to bring the class rep down!"

"Aw, guys," Kaede laughs, half embarrassed and half pleased beyond words. "I'm so happy I could kiss all of you."

"Well hold that kiss, because we've got great news!" Kaito exclaims, shifting in place like he's preparing to run a marathon. "Tell 'em, Maki, tell 'em!"

Kaede turns to the assassin inquisitively. Maki rolls her eyes and sighs, hands planted on her hips.   
"It's not... rescue, or anything," she says. "It's not good-good news. But we've found a place to shelter, we think. Somewhere to set up a base and assess our strategy."

"That _is_ good-good news!" Kaede splutters, and then twists around to throw her arms around the two of them. "Oh, I'm so glad! I just- I knew everything would work out if we found each other, I just knew it would!"

"We're still missing Shuichi," Maki points out, but she doesn't seem to mind being squished between Kaede and Kaito too much.

" _And_ Kokichi," Iruma points out indignantly, as if Maki would actually care if something happened to Ouma. 

"I'm fairly positive they're together, if it's any comfort," Shinguji says mildly, poking at his own wounds. "Perhaps we can look for them tomorrow."

Kaede pulls back from the hug, inhaling sharply. "No," she says. "We look for them tonight. But- but we get to the shelter, first. Then we can decide who goes and who stays, and... and what our next moves are. But we don't leave them alone."

"Hmph," Hoshi grunts. "As if we'll find them in here."

Kaede forces herself to meet him with the most hopeful smile she can muster. "We will," she says. "Because we've got to."

And, fortunately, no one sees fit to argue further. The group congeals together, has one last moment where they fuss over each other and express well-wishes and thankfulness for each other's safety; and then they move on to the place for shelter without further argument, following Maki and Kaito like fairytale children.

"There," Maki says, when they reach it- an old, worn-down building, the familiar Hope's Peak design. "We haven't inspected inside, but it was quiet earlier." 

Kaede moves ahead of the group, the others following close behind. The door in front of them is firmly shut, the blinds on the windows still drawn. The whole place looks eerily abandoned.

“Wait-” Amami says. "I think I hear-"

The group pauses. That is definitely movement. Shuffling and banging and the scrape of something over a floor. Kaede looks back to him uneasily, pausing at the front of the group and lifting her bat slowly. 

"Maybe we should find somewhere else," Gonta whispers- or his version of whispering, which is just speaking directly into her ear and trying to keep it a little soft. She smiles at him despite the circumstances.

"It'll be okay. I'm just going to go look, alright? You guys stay back."

"Fuck that," Kaito whispers, hotly. "We're coming with you, Kaede."

Shirogane hooks an arm with hers and gives her a comforting smile. "Come on, Final Girl," she says sweetly. "Let your friends back you up."

"Careful, now," Hoshi says lowly.

Kaede smiles back at all of them, caramelized bravery in her stomach, and slowly inches toward the door, bat high, Hoshi and his slingshot on one side, Shirogane and her molotovs at the other- Amami in the center of the group, Chabashira defending at the back. They inch toward the door. The sounds get louder and Kaede raises her chin, ready for whatever might strike them. They need this place. They can handle a few monsters, if they're there- they can get somewhere to hide out and wait for help. Whatever it is, she can take it on if she has her friends.

Kaede pushes the door open, raises her arms, and then immediately screams and covers her eyes, dropping the bat completely.

The people behind her are silent. The inside of the classroom is silent, too. 

Slowly, Kaede peeks out from between her fingers.

She meets Shuichi's eye, from where he sits on the teacher's desk, considerably less clothed than the last time she saw him- at least Ouma's still in his dress, but-

There's a sudden scrabble of movement and yelping the second they make eye contact- the two of them stumbling over each other and reaching for belts and shirts and garters, god, and also Kaito suddenly yelling right in Kaede's ear.

"Shut up, shut up!" She hisses, even though she can't tear her eyes away from what might be the most horrifying thing she's seen tonight. "You're going to attract the monsters again!"

"Good," Maki says, flatly.

"K-K-Kaede," Shuichi stammers, shoving Ouma off his lap inelegantly and fumbling to pull his skirt down. Ouma looks mildly panicked for only a few moments- when he meets Kaede's eye, he quickly looks away, and she thinks... is he _blushing?_

No, he can't be, because it's Ouma, and she doesn't think he's ever felt embarrassed in his life, and only two seconds later he's smirking and sprawling back over the desk in an overly dramatic pose, lifting a leg in the air and causing literally everyone to groan and look away. "You guys want in on this?"

Shuichi has one hand covering his entire face, but he uses the other to smack Ouma's shoulder. This backfires, because Ouma immediately makes some joke about spanking that Kaede has to tune out for the sake of her mental health.

"Oh my god." Amami elbows her, suddenly, and shoves in past everyone, storming through the classroom to collapse in one of the desk chairs. "I just need to sit down, can we all come in and stop waiting around like open targets now?"

Kaede stares at him. And then back at Shuichi, with two hands on his face now. And then back to the others behind her. 

She steps inside, slowly. 

"In my defense," Shuichi mumbles into his hands. "I am going to die tonight."

"In my defense," Ouma says, smug as ever. "It was about time."

Kaito steps in behind Kaede, following her over to a collection of desks and falling back on one with a kind of exhaustion she's never seen in him. "Bro," he says. "You make so many questionable decisions about your love life."

"For the love of god, just do your shirt up," Maki sighs- and Shuichi obeys awkwardly, lowering his hands to fumble with the buttons on his shirt. She then pauses, staring at him judgmentally. "You took your pants off but left the boots on?"

"Too many buckles?" Shuichi tries, staring determinedly at the ground.

"I asked him to," Ouma chirps, patting around the desk. "Hey, has anyone seen my underwear?"

Hoshi turns squarely around and opens the door back out into the night. Kiibo has to gently pick him up and turn him around before shutting the door himself.

"There is no point," he says. "We're all going to die, and I'm going to die after seeing Ouma's ass."

Ouma blows him a kiss. "You're welcome."  
Shuichi responds to this by smacking him again. 

"The school isn't going to pick up," Yumeno says, quietly. She lowers the phone from her ear and bites her lip. "I've been trying to call them this whole time- the police, too, and an ambulance. No one will pick up. I don't think anyone is coming for us."

The mood sobers. Kaede wraps her arms around herself and rubs her arms, trying not to shiver. She's suddenly aware of the cold, in her thin cotton shirt, of how this room smells like rot and abandonment. Are they going to be left here, too? Just another expensive experiment gone wrong. Sunk cost fallacy. 

"That's not good," Amami says, quietly. She turns to look at him, and when he meets her eyes, she shudders at the emptiness in his. "We're not going to make it without outside help."

"What do you mean?" Kiibo asks hesitantly, pressing his fingertips together. 

Amami sighs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. "I didn't want to freak you guys out."

"What?" Maki demands. "We can hold out against a few of those creatures. We just need to board ourselves up. Maybe we can hide."

"But there isn't just a few of them," Amami says, sitting up and crossing his good arm over his propped-up knee. "There's- hundreds, probably."  
This revelation settles in quietly for a moment- and then everyone splutters, competing to speak over the top of each other. He raises his voice. "I saw them! When I was wandering the woods- you saw them too, right? How it was kind of weird how we were attacked by different ones each time, how we passed groups of them? There's hundreds of them out there. I saw a whole gathering while I was alone and I thought I was going to die."

"S-so we hide," Yumeno stammers, still gripping her phone as the dialtone plays. "We hide, and they won't get us, right?"

Amami shakes his head, letting out a quiet little laugh. "You know how I survived? Same way I found you guys. They were heading towards you- I think they can smell when more people are grouped up together."

Kaede's mouth goes dry. "We thought so, too," she murmurs. "W-we split up, after. The first attack, but... we thought there were only a handful..."

"Splitting up won't do us any good, now," Amami says, leaning into his arm. "Not when we've got nowhere to go." He shuts his eyes, half-smiling. "I'm sorry, guys. I was hoping we'd find a way out by now."

"Oh my god," Iruma whispers. "We're going to die."

"We're not going to die!" Kaito argues, bouncing up from his desk with all-new, clearly somewhat fake energy. "We're going to get through this, together! Because- what are we?" He looks around them expectantly, hands on his hips. 

"Depressed?" Hoshi asks.

"Ordinary teenagers?" Kiibo tries.

"Amputated?" Amami asks, awkwardly lifting the stump of his shoulder. 

"We're fucking ultimates!" Kaito lifts both hands up and grins around the room. "And we can do anything together! Remember how much we've been through? Remember when Shirogane got a crush on Enoshima and tried to drag us into that weird fucking game to impress her?"

"Thanks for bringing that up, Momota-kun," Shirogane mutters, pulling up the straps of her flimsy costume. 

"Remember when Ouma trapped us all in Gonta's lab and we had to escape?" Kaito presses on, clapping her on one bare shoulder. "Remember when Iruma's weird-tech thing malfunctioned and then she accidentally shut herself out and we had to escape it? Remember when Shinguji's seance gave Tenko a concussion? Remember when me and Ouma got trapped in that mech and you had to rescue us? When we went bowling and Kaede knocked out Ama-"

"Okay, you don't have to keep bringing up the stupidest stuff we've done!" Kaede interrupts, her face going hot and red. "We get it! We can do anything!"

Kiibo laughs, pressing one metallic hand against the smeared "makeup" on his face. "Momota-kun is right. We'll find a way through this."

“So, let’s recap!” Kaito claps his hands together, staring over the bedraggled group. “What works against them?” He looks at them expectantly, a substitute teacher who has yet to realize just how full his hands are.

“Fire,” Hoshi says.

“And?”

There is a long silence.

“Well.” 

Kaede glances back over her shoulder to stare at Amami, who has pulled a bottle of… something… out of his duffle, one leg dangling off the desk. He then pulls out a lighter, and begins melting the wax seal around the rim.

“What the fuck is that?” Kaito demands. “Some kind of potion?”

“Sort of,” Amami replies. “I was saving it.” They watch, sort of entranced, as the flame flickers and sends dark green liquid dripping over his fingers. It must burn, but he doesn’t even flinch, staring with them. (they’re all a bit beyond flinching, now.)

When he uncorks it, it makes an audible popping sound, and then almost hisses in the air. The smell is almost immediately potent.

“Is that- absinthe?” Shuichi asks, leaning back a little.

Amami lifts the bottle to his mouth with a shaking hand. He takes a swig, then lowers it again, staring up at them with dull eyes.

“If I’m going out to those fucking things,” he says, “I would prefer to be drunk enough that I can’t feel pain anymore.”

“You are gonna super die,” Ouma says, almost admiringly.

“We’re all going to die,” he replies. “I know when I’m beaten. I am beaten when I am fighting a pack of magical monsters, I am lost in the middle of the woods, and I have zero supplies.”

“That’s not- there’s still got to be something-” Kaito tries, clearly frustrated. “We can’t give up now! We’ve gotta have faith! Together we can- Shuichi!”

Shuichi looks up mid-mouthful, expression like a dog caught stealing cupcakes off the coffee table. He chugs harder. 

“Shuichi,” Kaede scolds him, but her heart’s not in it.

He shrugs a shoulder and then offers the bottle to Ouma, who takes it eagerly. “No, we’re pretty fucked. I’m okay though.”

“He died doing what he loved,” Ouma quips, separating from the bottle and returning it to Amami, who takes a sip and immediately passes it along to Angie. “Fucking me.”

“Dying,” Shuichi says at the same time. The two pause and stare at each other.

They begin to make out almost violently. The rest of the class groans in unison.

“Who’s gonna fuck _me_ before I die?” Iruma whines.

“Fuck it,” Kaede says, surprising herself. And apparently everyone else, because they all stop what they’re doing and stare at her, including Shuichi and Ouma. 

She sits down on the moulding carpet and crosses her legs. “Come here, Miu. And bring the bottle.”

\--

By the time the bottle of absinthe is finished, Kaede has had several life changing experiences and puked maybe twice. The class sits sprawled across the room, in and out of each other's laps, staring over their supplies. Shuichi has reluctantly given up some of his knives, although he didn't seem happy about it. Kaede kept her bat- Chabashira insisted the others should share the weapons, and she was fine with her hands. Gonta and Hoshi and Shirogane worked together to smash some desks and then build some kind of unsettling shanks and stakes from the remnants. They split up the remnants of the booze, planted an emergency bottle under the teacher's desk, spread around a handful of lighters (making sure Ouma didn't have any this time), and let Shuichi continue to play his very very edgy playlists because the drama made it a little easier to laugh at the situation, even as they all got progressively drunker.

None of them really expect to survive this, but they wouldn't be ultimates if they didn't put up a good fight, right?

"Hey," Angie calls, after a while- either hours or ten minutes, long enough that the sky feels darker. "I see them."

Kaede shuffles over to the windows, her friends fanning out around her to stare out. If she were any less tipsy, she'd probably feel afraid- but she doesn't, not now, just feels something cool and quiet spread through her gut as she watches.

The sky is dark. The stars are visible in the distance, but even those seem to glint only weakly. Far brighter, though, yellow glints in the distance- eyes, and eyes, and eyes, and eyes, yellow as a snake's slitted as a goat's. They move slow and steady forward, brushing through the trees, almost elegant- until the first set of beasts steps through the trees, close enough that the rotten sinews of their flesh are now visible.

“Are those the monsters or is this the absinthe?” Chabashira asks.

“Maybe both,” Kaede replies, rubbing her eyes. She sighs, then reaches down for the baseball bat, staring out the window at the oncoming horde- like locusts to crops, or foxes to prey, or maybe it isn't even worth looking for metaphors when you're watching demons stalk forward with their yellow eyes and teeth a-glinting. "Positions, everyone. Let's go down swinging."

Shuichi pulls a kitchen knife from one of the buckled straps of his slutty goth boots and pulls up his fishnets, eyeliner and blood dripping down his face in equal parts. Kaede offers him a shaky grin he returns with just a small twitch. "The sharpest lives are the deadliest to live, I guess."

"God. you're so attractive when you're depressed," Ouma sighs, tearing off another scrap of lace from his skirt to tuck it into the still-soaking bandage on his shoulder. "And when we go don't blame us, amiright, detective?"

"Oh my fucking god, just let the monsters in so I don't have to listen to them anymore," Maki snaps.

Outside the windows, the hoarde breaks into a run. Something- half howl, half scream - ricochets through the air and one of the windows shatters as a beast throws itself at the boards behind it. 

And shit goes down.

It's the first fight in the dorms again. It's the apocalypse. It feels like a million years have passed since the start of the evening and Kaede thinks the girl wielding a baseball bat like a wolf is an entirely different person to the girl who pinned an apple broach to her shirt for her group LOONA cosplay. 

She shatters the skull of a beast only for it to rise up again, inky blood dripping from its gaping mouth- and it springs at her, so she has to move back to her friends, weaving in and out of the crowd, a constant mass of movement. They have a beat on the demons now- fire is one thing, but their real weakness is the way they're too hungry for violence, the way they're distracted by anyone who moves too much or yells too loud or looks too healthy. They prefer to prey on the strong, the ones still fighting- and Kaede can't tell if that makes them more or less terrifying.

She'll take it, though, if it means she can get them to leave a crumpled Shinguji alone to come and meet her bat with claws and teeth and sinew. 

She sends stacks of books ricocheting around the room, yells out distraction when they close too tightly around Maki or Gonta, leaps onto Kaito's back and uses him as a push-off point to slam her bat overhead of another monster. They keep coming, they keep coming, and they tear at her clothes and her skin and their teeth are too long to properly close around her classmates; but that doesn't matter when all they're trying to do is tear. Everything is crashing around them, and more keep pouring in through the boards on the windows, each one twice her size and more, and all she can do is listen for the people around her and sway with the alcohol and shatter them as best she can.

It's Iruma's wail that distracts her, gets claws raking up her legs as she looks over her shoulder. She kicks the beast off and stumbles back, scrambling for a better look- and Iruma is still standing, bleeding no more than the last time she looked, so it takes Kaede a few moments before her bleary eyes drift sideways.

 _"KIIBO!"_ Kaede screams, the sound ripped from her throat almost against her will.

The robot- her friend- looks almost innocently surprised, blinking over at her as the pieces of his metal body spark and shatter. Two beasts are upon him, and they must have gotten into- his joints, or his frame, or something, because they're pulling him apart, long wires twitching with electricity as they're dragged out of him like veins. Those awful teeth manage to latch onto a hand and shake, and another creature shrieks triumphantly and separates his legs from his body, and then a third leaps upon him and rips his head right from its sockets.

Kiibo's eyes flicker- vibrant cyan to neon magenta to warning-sign yellow, and then they lose any light at all. 

Iruma wails and leaps forward, fighting tooth and nail between them- Gonta has to rush forward to pull her back, wielding two of Shirogane's homemade shanks to drive back the creatures as Iruma stumbles forward and grabs Kiibo's head, holding it in two hands like a baby or a dying lover, and the creatures coo in victory as they crowd closer.

"I- I can fix him!" Iruma yells over the chaos, frantic, trying to stumble back toward safety. "I can- all his internal processes are here, I- I can save his AI-"

She continues speaking, but it's impossible to hear as she backs up further, as Gonta roars defensively and follows her to a corner, terrifying and human as he's ever been.

Kaede keeps staring at Kiibo, at the way Iruma is cradling his head against her with one hand and frantically trying to beat back the monsters set on devouring her with the other. Something shatters, and splits, and she looks over to watch more pour in through the skylight, dropping into the room in a pile like god himself threw them here. They just- they just keep coming-

"Fuck it," someone mutters- Kaede glances behind her to catch Shuichi vaulting over a desk, stabbing the entire length of that butcher knife into the nape of a creature's neck as it snarls and tears open his skin.

"Shuichi!" She gasps, scrambling to follow him- but another monster leaps at her, claws and fangs and teeth scraping down her face. She's knocked backwards, her skull hitting one of the stacked bookshelves with a _crack_ that sends her entire brain shaking through her body. 

Her vision doesn't so much white out as explode into color, a vibrant anime opening dancing behind her eyes and over top of them, flashing as the beast leaps onto her chest, pressure and claws and weight and its drooling maw snapping at her face-

And it's knocked back by Hoshi, wielding the baseball bat she just dropped. He sends it flying across the room with a frankly alarming display of strength, this creature that must be twice the size of him hitting the wall with a snapping sound and crumpling to the ground. 

He holds out a hand to her, and she grabs it, blindly, pulled up with such speed that the whole world sways.   
"Don't let the concussion kick in till we stop fighting," he tells her, gruffly, and then shoves the bat into her hands and picks up a vase to throw it across the room to shatter across the back of another monster.

Kaede wobbles on her feet, plants her pumps further into the carpet, and tightens her grip. 

On the bright side, her head is ringing so badly she can't feel pain anymore.

She throws herself back into the fight with burning intensity. Her balance is off, but that just means she can send her whole weight crashing down with the back, stumbling back to her feet to elbow one right in their brittle fucking teeth. Kaede kicks and slams and crashes into monster after monster, in tandem with those around her. She grabs one of the last liquor bottles and sends it flying, watches Shirogane light up the demons and then shoves them down so they have no choice but to burn themselves out.   
The tiny classroom wails with screams- if every window wasn't shattered before, they would shatter now, the high shrieking of death and anger. She sees more lights out the window. More eyes. The whole world feels hot. 

Kaede is so furiously beating the shit out of a monster that she doesn't quite process Kaito is speaking to her until he scoops her up and leaves her yelling, kicking in his arms.

"Kaede!" He shouts, tugging her by the hair to make her look around. "The place is on fire, we've gotta go!"

Kaede stares blankly, her head still rattling around. She bounces over Kaito's shoulder, but her vision slowly blurs and adjusts, and then she can make out the flicker of flame over the walls of the classroom as he pulls her out into the woods. The cold air hits her like a wash of cold water as he sets her down and gently pats her head wound. 

Nearby, the rest of her classmates struggle to their feet. The fire is spreading now- the whole roof ablaze, rapidly catching to the trees.

“YOU SET THE FUCKING BUILDING ON FIRE _AGAIN?_ ” Kaede screams.

“IT WAS SHUICHI THIS TIME!” Ouma yells back, frantically patching up the wound in Shuichi’s side with one of his stockings.

“The lake,” Shuichi slurs, trying to get to his feet even as Ouma pushes him down. “We’ve gotta get to the lake. Hopefully this will attract some attention and we can wait it out in the water.”

Shinguji appears from out of goddamn nowhere- Kaede jumps and then catches her breath, watching him gently cradle a bruised Himiko, clutching a nasty twist in her leg- twisted back and fractured. “Head north, and we’ll come to the trail,” he says. “I walk here quite often. We’ll need to keep low in the smoke.”

“Does anyone need carried?” Amami asks, supporting Shirogane with his one free arm as she limps onward. “Gonta’s got Angie and Hoshi.” 

“Are we all together?” Kaede asks, a little frantic. “I won’t leave anyone behind!”

“It’s alright, Akamatsu-san,” Shirogane says comfortingly. “We’re all here.”

Kaede scans the group, counting them again and trying not to inhale too much. Is she dizzy from smoke or is it the alcohol poisoning finally kicking in? One, two three… seven, ten… fifteen. And her. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s go.”

“Come to the front with me, Akamatsu-san,” Tenko says softly. Flames swallow the trees around them. “You’re uninjured, right?”

Kaede inhales shakily, then nods, slowly moving up the front. 

They inch through the forest, running until they’re clear from the blaze, but the heat stretches out into the night and the smoke keeps pouring around them. The things that aren’t wolves leap from the trees- Kaede swings out with her bat and cracks their skulls just for them to get up again. There’s no fight here, just a way to flee, Chabashira flipping monsters to the ground while Kaede runs through the group to check up on their safety. 

She hears Shuichi cry out and snaps her head back to the front- only for Kaito to yell in response and scoop up the detective as he impales a creature on the ground.

“I got you, bro,” the astronaut pants, cradling Shuichi like a bride or a child as he looks up with cold, yellow eyes, and throws a kitchen knife cleanly through the sockets of a monster about to leap at Ouma. Ouma smashes it with a chair leg and vaults over the crumpled form, and they run, they run, they run, because it just gets up again. 

Gonta throws a creature to the blaze behind them and they divert sideways, because the fire is safer than the snarling teeth even if Kaede can feel her lungs tearing apart in the smog. Her heart just keeps pounding. Hoshi keeps throwing rocks with deadly accuracy, a force in his arm and a look in his eyes that makes her shudder and swallow down a lump as they push onward.

“The lake!” Kiibo calls out, torn head sitting in Iruma’s burned hands. "I see it!" 

They burst through the treeline into the clearing, forcing themselves toward the glisten of water- a final burst of speed, one last push as the fire consumes. 

Kaito dumps Shuichi on the ground, but the detective picks himself back up, immediately stumbling over to check on Ouma. He takes the leader's face in his hands, eyes scanning him as he says something quiet and Ouma reaches to touch the wound in his side. The moment is a little too tender to watch- Kaede has to look away.

It's a good thing she does, because one of the beasts suddenly comes tearing through the woods- two on either side of it. They all tense, expecting more, but the wailing continues- the smoke must limit their senses.

Which is good. Three, they can deal with.

Chabashira, Gonta, and Hoshi make short work of them; just keeping them back from the lake and from the weaker classmates and letting the fire swallow them up. Kaede watches with her heart in her throat as they succumb, melting together, white skin twisting and bubbling like some kind of genetic disaster. But they do go down- one and then two melding together, one of the pair flickering out and falling over like dead weight, followed by its pair- and the third comes down soon, too. 

Not without tearing open Chabashira's stomach, though.

It feels like the whole class screams as the creature falls- but Chabashira doesn't do anything more than blink, staring down at herself.   
And then she crumples to her knees and Kaede flies forward, followed by everyone else, cradling her close at the edge of the water. 

"Tenko- Tenko, come on," she whispers, fumbling with her body as that white shirt is slowly soaked so, so, red, dripping over the caramel tones of her skirt. 

"Tenko!" Yumeno wails, clutching to her at the other side, struggling for her hand. "Tenko, someone- someone help her! Someone fix her, now! She's bleeding!"

Chabashira doesn't let her eyes flutter shut, or stare up glassily, or anything like that. She looks- she looks far too normal, when she smiles, like there's nothing wrong at all- just some worry niggling at the back of her mind. "Himiko-san," she says, softly. "Akamatsu-san." 

"Tenko," Yumeno sobs, pulling her hand to her face, cradling it there. "No."

"It's okay," Chabashira says, leaning back against Kaede's lap, gently squeezing Yumeno's fingers. "My master says... better to go out protecting others than to go in silence." 

Kaede swallows. Her throat hurts from smoke- maybe that's why her eyes are watering.

A burning branch comes flying from seemingly nowhere- or maybe it dropped from the smoke, here to set a small patch of grass on fire. She watches the flames flicker in the damp grass and slowly spread. 

Hoshi kneels down in the grass next to her, leaning over to light a cigarette in the heat. He pulls the tail from his jeans and uses it to stomp out the flames, afterward.

Kaede looks up at the sky. It looks like it’s burning, too, smoke blocking out every single cloud and flames flickering upward like it’s the end of time.

“If hell was going to open up anywhere,” Amami murmurs, gripping at his arm and trying to staunch the bloodflow again. “It would be Hope’s Peak.”

Tojo bows her head. “We put up an admirable fight,” she says, standing with her bare legs in the lake. She looks like some kind of prophetess, her skirt floating out behind her as she reaches up to unpin the spiders from her hair. 

Kaede opens her arms wordlessly. Both of them step out of the water and lean against either side of her, staring at the oncoming flames. When Tojo kisses her forehead, it feels like there’s more meant to be said there- but Chabashira shifts in her lap and Kaede can only give the maid a small smile before she returns to soothing the girl in her lap.

Yumeno continues to sob, softly, wiping her eyes.

“She’s still breathing,” Kaede says, comfortingly. She lifts her eyes from the sleeping girl again to stare back out at the oncoming storm. “We’ll go out together.”

“Kaede,” Shuichi says. She looks up at him from the razed grass, over to where he stands, leaning against Ouma as Ouma leans against him, holding each other up. He looks tired. For a moment, he’s quiet, and everyone else is quiet, too. Kaito and Maki are curled against each other, hovering close on his other side, Kaito’s hand on his left shoulder. It’s like the class is waiting for him to speak for them.  
“...I’m glad we were all together,” he says, eventually. “As friends.”

And the rest of them murmur in agreement now, docile as a funeral. Hoshi pulls off his cat ears and lets them drop. Quietly, Shinguji kneels down in the grass next to Angie, mimicking her form. She smiles at him, beatific as ever, and clasps her hands. He mimics her. Slowly, Gonta follows.

Something wet slides down Kaede’s cheek- she assumes the headwound must have reopened, but when she reaches up, her hand comes back clear- even the ash on her fingers has smeared, revealing the burns underneath. 

She sniffs but doesn't wipe her eyes. She'll keep crying, either way, she supposes.

“Happy halloween, guys.”

The sky is falling, but it'll burn before it hits the ground. The alcohol in her system might be enough to poison her, but she's sure the smoke will get there first. Even the lake behind them seems to boil, but her friends keep standing there, their legs in the water, on the razed grass, hellfire all around them. Kaede counts her friends for one last time.... One, two, three, four, all around her. Five and six just to her left. Six, seven eight, still standing behind. Two more holding hands only a few feet away. Three holding each other on the ground. Two more close by, missing pieces and bleeding but still there with her. Plus herself is sixteen.

Kaede closes her eyes.

"The monsters aren't screaming anymore."

She opens them again- looks sideways, over at Shuichi, still a few steps in front of her, still holding Ouma close. His gaze is just as intent on the horizon ahead.

"They've stopped screaming."

Tojo bows her head. "Let's hope we've trapped them here. Let's hope they never see the rest of the world."

"What about the school?" Kiibo asks, resting in Iruma's lap, his eyes closed. "Will it all burn?"

"Maybe that's for the better, Kiibo," Shirogane says comfortingly. "It was probably Hope's Peak that created them."

"The monsters stopped screaming," Shuichi repeats.

Kaede glances over at him, leaning her head on Amami's as she does. "Shuichi?"

"They just. Stopped." 

Curled up against him, Ouma lifts his head. Kaede doesn't think she's ever seen him look quite so weary- but still, he smiles, the grin curling around his cheeks. "I must be off my game," he murmurs. "I can't believe you noticed before me."

Shuichi, suddenly, smiles and leans in to nuzzle the top of his head, rubbing his cheek against it like a pleased puppy. His eyeliner is smeared down half his face. "Score one for the detective, then."

The class groans, softly, and then laughs, and Kaede laughs with them. 

"They all just stopped at once," Shuichi says, opening his eyes again but leaving his cheek in Ouma's hair. "At the same time."

"So what?" Hoshi asks, stretching slowly in the grass. "That mean something?"

"Up there, sweet detective," Ouma hums, voice muted. Kaede follows his arm up into the sky, where he's pointing- and catches her breath.

One, small, solid, block of white. Almost perfectly square.

"...what?" She breathes, can't quite murmur. It's- familiar, in an odd way. Like she should recognize it, but not like this, not in the middle of the end of the world. Is this God? 

Shuichi lets out a breath, suddenly, heavy and shaking. "There," he says. "There it is."

"Score one for the thief."

"What's going on?" Kaito demands, pushing himself a little more upright. "What are you two talking about?"

"Just wait," Shuichi says, softly, and- well, what else is there to do?

They go quiet again, staring at that block of white in the sky- now painfully aware of the lack of screams, the only sound the roar and crackle of fire in the distance, approaching, all consuming. It's creeping closer, still, but it won't reach them- not before the smoke gets to them, anyway. Her lungs feel so heavy. 

It's dark. It's red. She tried so, so hard.

And then- It's like the square folds open, one white sheet of origami paper in the burning sky. It unfolds until it's doubled, then tripled, then swollen inside, and then it's not paper but tiles, falling into place, spreading out across the world from that one, singular point.

And suddenly the white is less paper-white and more unnatural, the buzz of a computer screen, blue light, calculated and pure. The absence of all things- and all color, all at once. A spectrum of light.  
And suddenly she remembers why it seemed so familiar.

"What?" Shirogane gasps, falling back and gripping at the remnants of her costume as the world opens up, and then condenses- tile after tile after tile, blocking them in. The expanse of the forest is gone, not shrinking but slowly covered up, like walls being formed where they sit. The process speeds up as they tumble into place, until each tile clicks down like a wave, swarming over the burning landscape.

And then the whole world goes so white and bright that she can't see, has to squeeze her eyes shut and blink as it dims again, staring around a familiar white room- empty, but for a door on the opposite end, no handle or knob and nothing visible beyond.

Gonta says, "why-"

And then the door clicks open- the heel of one laced boot stepping out of it, followed by a second.

Hinata Hajime, upperclassman and ultimate Classified, steps into the white room and rubs his face.

"Right," he says. "Um. Okay. First of all, I'm sorry."

\--

Shuichi is standing in the Simulation Control Room in Hope's Peak Academy, where he has stood many, many times before. Hope's Peak was one of the first places to role out full-body immersive VR technology, and they're very proud of that. The simulations and VR machines are used frequently for classes, particularly for people with talents like his that can require a carefully sculpted environment. Shuichi's pretty familiar with both this room and the way the simulations work. 

He is not entirely sure what he's doing here, is the only thing.

"Hey," Shirogane says, a little accusatory, a little confused. "You're dressed as a vampire, too."

Hajime Hinata glances down at his body like he'd forgotten what he was wearing. "Ah. Yeah. I am. I think Naegi-kun in the class above yours is, too?" He shrugs a shoulder, awkwardly. "I think we all got dragged into doing the sexy vampire thing this year. Weird coincidence."

It's not exactly the most important thing right now, but Shuichi does take a moment to feel spiteful about the fact that Hinata was clearly not dragged into _booty shorts._

"Uh." Hinata looks over them all again. "Do you guys want to sit down?"

There's a pause, and then the few people standing shuffle down. Shuichi looks at Kokichi, who shrugs a shoulder, the ripped collar of his dress slipping off it. He looks tired. And angry. Shuichi can't imagine he's pleased to find out he showed fear in front of the others for nothing. 

Shuichi gently pulls him down and brushes back the singed hair from his face, pressing a kiss to his forehead. His eyes crinkle, a little. 

"So, the good news is. It wasn't real! Yay! You still have all your limbs and stuff." Hinata makes a show of clapping his hands, and then immediately drops it when he sees the look on Amami's face. Shuichi does not blame him. "Look, I said this was a bad idea. I said it was a stupid tradition, but Kaz got all excited, and-"

"What do you mean, a tradition?" Hoshi interrupts. Hinata looks very much like he would prefer to be anywhere else.

"It's like. A hazing thing. For third years. Before they graduate and move onto the senior course."

“." Says Kaede.

He shuffles a little uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s tradition to use one of the simulation machines on the first years every halloween- happened to us, last year, too. But, uh. You sort of. Burned the building down and killed the monster really fast.”

Ouma, clothes dripping from his body like seafoam, preens despite the blood on his face. Shuichi has to look away. 

“So- so what happened?” Kaede asks, looking no less like she’d walked straight from the gates of hell despite the now clinical atmosphere. She reaches up to smudge at the ash on her cheek, the air practically crackling around her. “What- how did- why-” Her voice cracked part way through.

Hinata winces. “Um. We’re not sure, either. We just- it’s meant to last an hour? Not? Twenty minutes? So we sent in a second monster and shifted your objective toward the woods, but then….” He trails off, looking more and more tired by the minute. “...Nagito.”

“Komaeda-senpai?” The upperclassman’s name is sort of answer enough, but Shuichi would also prefer some more context.

Hinata physically cringes again. He looks almost as tired as they are. “Souda wanted to implement another monster, up the challenge level a little. He asked Nagito to do it.”

“Well that was fucking stupid of him and makes this entire mess his fault, then,” Kaito snaps. “Everyone knows you don’t get him to do important things!!! Aren’t you tracking his cycle?”

A few people snicker. Hinata rubs his face. “He set it into ‘endurance mode.’ And broke the emergency systems. We’ve spent the last five hours trying to get you out.” The student pauses for a moment, one eye glinting oddly in the light. “He’s apologized, by the way. We’ll probably all get in trouble for this.”

“As you should,” Maki replies, coldly. 

“Right…” Hinata glances around the room, as if there’s anything to see but white. “Um. Well, I just came here to say that we’ve got it sorted now. You should all wake up in the simulation lab in about… seven minutes? After we finish processing and double-checking the safety features.” 

“So we are… safe?” Gonta asks, a little hesitantly, like he’s afraid to jinx it.

“Yep.” Hinata clicks the p at the end of the word, already inching back toward the singular door. “Uh, any questions?”

“Fuck you,” Hoshi says.

“Haha. Okay. Cool.” 

He continues to slowly creep backwards as they all stare at him in silence. Then he turns away and breaks into a very awkward half-run.

And then he pauses at the door of the white, square room, slowly turning back to stare directly at Shuichi. “... Congrats, Saihara and Ouma? And, uh. Akamatsu and… uh.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Did you enjoy the show?” Kokichi asks innocently. Shuichi puts his face in his hands.

He does not see Hinata’s reaction, but he does hear Kaede tell Hoshi she would like a cigarette.

“...I’ll see about. Getting you guys some therapy,” Hinata says, slowly. 

“Hope’s Peak allows therapy?” Gonta mumbles, a little quieter than normal.

“You would think it would require it,” Shinguji muses- it’s a little reassuring to know that his voice, at least, is still steady. “Considering how many ultimates have severe trauma or related issues.”

“It’s just part of the brand,” Shirogane says, her voice almost dreamy. Shuichi winces in sympathy when he peeks out between his fingers- she looks pretty shaken. Still covered in ash. 

Hinata leaves after mumbling something else about how they’ll be out in about five minutes, and the sixteen of them are left alone in the empty room, staring at each other.

“We should watch cabin in the woods,” Iruma suggests.

“Fuck you and fuck your fucking horror movies,” Shuichi tells her.

She doesn’t even yell, just lets out a heavy sigh and pulls her bruised knees to her chest, ripped schoolgirl skirt dragging against the wounds. “You know what. That’s fair.”

“Great party, though, Akamatsu-chan,” Kokichi chirps. “I loved the decorations.”

“Oh- those were all Tojo-san,” Kaede says bashfully, tucking back a hunk of matted hair behind her ear. It’s hard to tell under the burns, but Shuichi thinks she’s gone pink.

“It was nothing,” Tojo says, bowing her still-bleeding head. “I am always happy to help you out however I can, Akamatsu-san. Your efforts for the class are always appreciated.”

“Aw, stop it,” Kaede says, flapping her hands. “You guys are so sweet.”

“It was a simulation, guys!” Kaito says, gripping his hair with both hands. “None of that was real! The real decorations are still back in the dorm! It wasn’t- it wasn’t real-”

Maki pats his shoulder comfortingly, and then, when he begins to sob, pulls him into her arms and rubs his back. “There, there,” she tells him, completely deadpan. 

“Hey, do you think that means we still have all that alcohol left?” Amami asks, looking half-asleep or maybe half-dead.

The class erupts into discussion pretty soon after- bickering over who gets to drink what, already making jokes about collective trauma, Shinguji arguing his case for being allowed to light candles in celebration, Chabashira cheering about how much food they have to eat, Kaede already setting up a Bonding Over Almost Dying But Not Really Halloween Movie Night. Shuichi smiles out at them all, despite feeling nothing but exhaustion at this point.

Kokichi shuffles up against his side. “Hey,” he says. “So it doesn’t really count if it’s in VR, right?” 

Shuichi looks back over to Kaito, who is no longer crying and is instead wiping his eyes and angrily saying something that’s making Maki blush, and then at Kaede who is- completely surrounded by people, Amami’s head in her lap, Chabashira and Iruma on one side, Tojo and Shirogane on the other, Kiibo and Shinguji leaning in to have their say, Himiko clinging to Angie and Chabashira, Hoshi and Gonta sharing the last of the VR lollipops. 

“I don’t think they’ll notice if we skip movie night,” he answers. 

Kokichi’s smile widens into something distinctly playful. “I have a few more things to knock off my bucket list. Just in case, you know.”

Somehow, Shuichi feels a little less exhausted. “How many of them involve handcuffs?”

**Author's Note:**

> obligatory this is fiction dont drink and fight monsters dont drink and fuck and sure as hell dont go to weird boarding schools message <3
> 
> i will. do kattar shuffle soon i prommy. (人◕ω◕) i pwomise. you can trust me. it'll be out tomorrow oohhhhh itll be out tomorrow youre so excited and you believe me  
> (i do have the legit excuse of being Sick and Busy. i took a break from being sick for halloween but i figure after i have another 13 hour nap i'll be good again and also hopefully i can jumpstart more mania)
> 
> if you would like to be involved in polls for more fics like this/witness my quote-unquote writing process/debate about the v3 cast's opinions of idol anime and kpop with me/be updated on what i'm planning for other projects- you can find my tumblr at https://unseeliekey.tumblr.com/
> 
> if you would like to give me money i have a ko fi ( https://ko-fi.com/unseeliekey ) but im in this for the love of the game babey so no pressure unless you would like to buy me energy drinks and nyquil/get access to my frankly abhorrent note taking process and some unfinished drafts


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